Entry 9 – 2024 – Daily River region , NT
We spent two days in Darwin. The tow tug got a service. We did have a hypothetical wish list for items we thought might make life a little easier for us, not expecting to be able to obtain every item. It was a very busy period, travelling here and there. We gave it a go. By 5.30 pm on the second day, we ticked off our last wish list item. It was most pleasing, though we did pay a premium price with an expenditure over our two days at Darwin coming in at $2,999.
Wow, we had just added about $40 to our average daily travel expenditure since leaving home in May. Though nearly $2,000 of this expenditure would have been included in our normal home time expenditure activities. Like the $1080 expenditure on an i-pad for Steve.
We were back on the road again and we still hadn’t decided, “where to next?” (We’ve found a new word, unused previously by us.) Our neurotransmitter receptacles spotted a conservation reserve in the Daly River region. Our previous research of the Daly River region showed its primary attraction was aimed at fisher people and those with boats.
We hadn’t explored this region, located just south of Litchfield N.P. and decided some time at the Daly River, Mt Nancar Conservation Area was an opportunity to personally view this area.
We hadn’t researched a route to Mt Nancar Conservation Area. We thought we would travel south along the Stuart Highway and then head west into the Daly River region. We knew of a suitable overnight stay at a road side rest area previously visited by us along our way. Once we had entered our destination coordinates into our tow tugs gps we were on our way. It wasn’t long before our gps directed us away from what we thought to be our route.
Trying to check on “not happy Jan,” (our name for our gps) proposed route we were unable to get google maps to work. We had previously travelled about 20 kilometres down the road Jan was directing us along and knew it connected to the main road we were aiming for in the Daly River region.
A day later we were made aware of a world-wide event where computers had crashed due to a program fault. Once again, we had missed it all. For us we do enjoy our nomadic lifestyle away from the dramas of modern-day life.
On this occasion we decided to let Jan have her way as we knew of a free camp along this route.
We pulled into the Robin Falls camp area and managed to find a gap to park up for the night. Once again it was reiterated to us to be polite with your fellow campers. We spoke with the people either side of a spot, confirming if it was ok for us to camp for the night. As it transpired, we struck two, very polite couples. We shared a camp fire with these two couples with wonderful conversation into the evening. None of us had previously met and we all departed the next day waving one another off. Robin Falls did turn out to have a much nicer scenic setting than the road side stop we had initially thought of.
During the dry season the Northern Territory seems to be ablaze with fires. There is the constant, presence of thick expanses of smoke spiralling upwards towards the sky. Most of these fires burn with no control measures in place. It inflicts a sense of anxiety with other Australians, including us. There is a common knowledge/experience fires result with property damage, human injury and death and then what about the flora and fauna damage. Over the many years we have been travelling around the Northern Territory we have been bombarded by the locals including the media, with comments like, we know how to control our fire risk and aboriginals have used fire for hundreds of years for hunting purposes.
Some or our examples over the last month. On the outskirts of Darwin there was a bush fire, Litchfield National Park we experienced some nervousness due to nearby deliberately lit fires which had the parks rangers on edge and the Daly River region was no different with fires burning on both sides of the road we were travelling along.
When we turned onto the track to make our way to our next planned destination, Mt Nancar Conservation Area there were two aboriginal children lighting up the bush. They both turned their backs to us when we drove by. We believe, it to be a very sad, dangerous activity/culture.
We set camp nearby the Daly River. When we walked over for our first view of the river a Jabiru was flying by. It certainly was our type of setting. There were some beautiful colours at sunset.
In this region the landscape can change from year to year due to the ferocity of the wet season. The owner’s home can be cut off by flood waters, becoming an island at times for three months. During these periods their vista is a landscape covered by flood waters for kilometres around.
Further conversation with the owner showed they were living off grid, self-sufficient with a need for a backup during the wet times. They had a backup power supply, two fridges, freezers, vehicles, two of most farm machinery and the list went on.
The below picture shows the height of this year’s flood waters along the track we were travelling to our camp. It was a comforting feeling to have our camp site, located about 100 metres from the owner’s home, just in case?
There were a couple of walking trails available on the property. We did one circumnavigating a billabong. There was no defined track, probably due to the constant changing landscape. We followed lots of painted dots located on tree trunks with the occasional coloured bottle hanging from a tree branch. It was quite uneven under foot, leaving us with some aching joints. We could see a reasonable amount of bird life way off in the distance on the billabong.
In locations of this type, we bed down for the night with full visibility through our windows of our surrounds. Come morning we were presented with some glorious sunrises.
We enjoyed our breakfasts, seated high up on the Daly River bank, relishing our magnificent setting and the mornings activities. One time we spotted a kite, unceremoniously landing on the opposite bank. When we loaded a photograph onto the computer it looked like it may have captured a red-tailed black cockatoo.
We were unable to project into a photograph the size of our setting. Steve managed to make his way down to the river bank to help show the scale of our setting. It was hard going getting back up from the steep river bank. Thankfully there was a rope set up to assist with any poor unfortunate person whom wandered from the safe upper level.
Down the road about 5 kilometres, we came across a causeway. It was a location where you got to appreciate the intensity for the flow of the Daly River. There was debris stuck high up in the trees indicating how high the water can get.
We were given some directions to an abandoned copper mine. The track was quite rough and we incurred some unwanted stripping on our tow tug as the bush started to close in. We came to a spot where enough was enough and executed a U turn with its own element of difficulty.
We may have missed out on seeing the old copper mine but at least during our time on the track we spotted some buffalo and got close to some termite mounds. Over the next few days, we came across more buffalo than we had seen in all our previous trips to this area of Australia.
It was lovely and peaceful at our campground with the only human generated noise from the jet planes occasionally flying overhead.
The Daly River region is controlled by private land owners with a primary focus aimed at providing fishing charters. (Expensive fishing charters.) For us it didn’t have an inviting atmosphere and we would not be inclined to wander into this region again. Though we must say we are not fisher fanatic people.
Leaving the Daly River region we stopped at Pine Creek for internet reception. We had decided not to venture into the Kakadu National Park due to many of the locations we would have liked to see being closed. We even looked at vacancies for Edith Falls located around 70 kilometres further down the road. We managed to secure the site we had stayed at the previous month for four nights. We still had five nights to fill prior our Edith Falls booking.
We set camp near Pine Creek at the Pussy Cat Flats race track campground. There was a bar and a promoted happy hour. We thought it appropriate to participate.
Oh, my lord. We will be very nervous about participating in any happy hour in the future.
The first evening, we sat a table with a group of people. All seemed happy and friendly. Most had already been travelling for several months during the year. Some it was their first time ever and one couple their 18th year travelling. It sounded like they had all been to many different locations. Steve made the mistake of asking where were their most memorable scenic highlights.
We spent the next hour listening to the drama’s people had incurred. Like going on a hike and they couldn’t do it, including not having enough water, or we had all these different motor issues. Not one reference to a scenic location. Leaving happy hour, Steve made the comment he thought none of that group should be travelling. They sounded like they were a disaster waiting to happen. Mary expressed she didn’t want to become anything like that group. We needed to monitor our future selves. Or could it be we are just plain boring?
Pussy Cat Flats race course had many similarities to other showgrounds/campgrounds located in the northern areas of Australia. There is a special uniqueness/distinctiveness of their location. There would be the presence of termite mounds.
It is located in a special environment on the outskirts of the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park. Its ecosystems were much appreciated by our emotional feel-good neurotransmitters.
Our next stop for four nights was at our much-loved Nitmiluk National Park - Leliyn Edith Falls campground. On arrival we saw the carpark was at capacity and we stopped at the side of the road with Steve staying with our vehicle while Mary walked into the campground for assessment prior entry. Via the hand-held two-way radio Mary advised a vehicle was parked in our campsite with no occupants.
Steve walked in for a further assessment. Steve could see in the distance Mary was talking with a couple of people. As it transpired the courier transporting her replacement boots from home had also arrived at the campground just prior to us. Ironically, they had been walking along the same bit of road in opposite directions and walked up to one another.
It was one of those totally unexpected moments and very excitable. It was so, so good to see Petra and Jeff, whom we first met at this same campground in 2020 and have been great friends since.
And Mary was very happy to have the use of her new hiking boots.
It was a busy four days with “the group of four,” lots of chattering, hiking, playing card games and the main attraction at Edith Falls with lots of time spent in the fall’s waters. Thank you to Petra and Jeff for some photo's.
