25 - Pine Creek / Douglas Hot Springs

25 – August 2016 - 24/8/16 

Once again it was a weekend and we propped at Pine Creek for a couple of nights at the Pine Creek Railway Resort where we enjoyed a very nice evening meal. Our priority was to replace our damaged tyre and it was unknown if we needed to travel north to Darwin or was able to obtain one from the closer Katherine, south.

 

Dining room

There were 3 pubs at Pine Creek all with some form of a caravan park attached. We walked around exploring the township in less than an hour. The walk was helpful as we scrutinised each pubs meal offers. We located a Liberty Fuel Station up one of the side streets with fuel 10 cents a litre cheaper than the fuel bowsers at one of the caravan parks come pub come food store. And the fuel was 41 cents a litre cheaper than the fuel at the Mary River Road House about 50 kilometres away at the exit / entry to Kakadu when our low fuel warning light started flashing. Luckily at the time we decided to only add 20 litres to our fuel tank when we thought the fuel price seemed a bit exorbitant. A saving of about $50 when we filled our fuel tank at Pine Creek. 

We drove to the nearby Umbrawarra Gorge national park where we walked or more correctly rock hopped along the gorge viewing some lovely scenery. The town lookout was more of a lookout where you could view some disused mine holes and water in one of the large open cut excavated mines. The view of town was obscured by the tree canopy and didn’t exist.

Umbrawarra Gorge

Umbrawarra Gorge

Umbrawarra Gorge

Umbrawarra Gorge

There was even a Sunday morning market where we watched from the caravan 5 small stalls setting up in the park opposite around mid-morning and we spent about 5 to 10 minutes to accomplish scrutinizing the offerings. 

Monday Morning we rang the Katherine tyre business and they were able to accommodate us in a couple of hours. We were promptly on our way to Katherine where our tyre was replaced. We sourced advise about a warning light on our tow tugs dash at the Toyota dealer which just happened to be alongside the tyre business, booked the tow tug in for a service in a couple of weeks’ time, restocked the caravans pantry and were travelling north again all in the same day. It was a very busy day without time to ponder, where everything fell into place. 

The only thinking time we had during the day was whilst driving when we discussed our future travel strategies as our day was unravelling. We had previously been deliberating over our likes, our needs and we had decided to stay around this area of Australia whilst the ambient air temperature was to our liking. On an impulse of the moment we decided to return to Douglas Hot Springs for a few days then possibly back to Edith Falls for a few more days before revisiting Katherine for the tow tugs service. 

Douglas Hot Springs was about 50 odd kilometres north of Pine Creek but first we had to travel about 90 kilometres south to Katherine before travelling north again. It was a long day for us arriving at Douglas Hot Springs about 5.45 p.m. We found a spot to park, had some tea and collapsed into bed for a sound night’s sleep. 

It was so nice to be back at Douglas Hot Springs, (reference entry 17) remarkably more enjoyable with less people around from our previous visit. It was wonderful not having to jockey with other people for space in the water resulting with nearly half each day spent in the waters leaving our bodies in a wrinkly clean state.

The below picture shows the campground on our visit back in June. 

The below picture shows the campground now

 

The happiness created by the environment of the Douglas Hot Springs was infectious with all its visitors. Whenever we were soaking in the warm waters we seemed to strike up some form of conversation with whoever was in the area. One couple were evidently all packed and having a final dip before resuming their travels when Steve & Paul struck up a conversation. 4 hours later his wife said, “It looks like I’ll have to unpack!” The next morning when they said their farewells, Robyn directed both boys not to start any conversations and they both sheepishly complied.

It was just “so delightful,” at Douglas Hot Springs we decided to stay as long as possible where we ended up driving directly to Katherine for the tow tugs service needs, leaving our planned stay at Edith Falls for another day. 

We stayed at Douglas Hot Springs for 9 nights, where the daily conversations with fellow travellers tallied around 3-6 hours each day. It seemed we were now at the tail end of the peak period for this area of Australia and there was a significant drop in the volume of people around, in turn creating a far more relaxed atmosphere which was very appreciated by our health and welfare. 

Another bonus with the decline of human activity at Douglas Hot Springs was the marked increase in the presence of bird life. We were regularly woken very early by the onslaught of loud bird chatter announcing the arrival of another day.

Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo

Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo

Double Barred Finches

Shiny Monarch Shinning Flycatcher

Monarch Shinning Flycatcher

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos having a drink

This pair of Rainbow Bee-Eaters was our daily locals keeping the insect population at bay.

Once the sun set it seemed like hundreds of other Rainbow Bee-Eaters came to visit in their tree. This was an amazing sight, a first time experience seeing so many Rainbow Bee-Eaters together.

24 - Kakadu part 2

24– August 2016 - 13/8/16 – Kakadu part 2 

Our next stopover was at another national park managed bush setting at Mardugal campground also with great hot showers located a few kilometres from the commercialised Cooinda Lodge area with the acclaimed Yellow Water Cruises. 

We were happy with our choice of location at the national park campground after viewing the Cooinda camping area where the caravans were packed in so tight; some caravans didn’t have enough space to roll out their awnings. At Cooinda reception we had to queue up for about 40 minutes to book a cruise, even with three people operating three computers at reception. It was like peak hour traffic with congested people all over the place.

We participated in a sunset and sunrise Yellow Water Cruise, (the first cruise had a price tag of $90 per person and if you participated in a second cruise you could get an option of a $25 per person price which we did). It was certainly a commercialised operation with 4 boats operating at the same time, each with a capacity of about 50 people. It was a professionally run operation, which it needed to be with the high volume of people being funnelled into a narrow loading dock.

Whistling Ducks

2 X Jabiru and Water Buffalo

Wild horse

Darter

Azure Kingfisher

Azure Kingfisher

Comb Crested Jacanas

Sunset with Jabiru

Nankeen Night-Heron

Paperbark Flycatcher

Green Tree Snake

Forest Kingfisher

Little Kingfisher

Jabiru

Look at all my legs

And when I lift a leg

3 X Kingfishers

Crocodile & ducks foreground, Cruise boat background

White bellied Sea Eagles

For us the morning cruise was superior with a larger volume of bird life sighted. It seemed no matter which cruise you participated in they took you to exactly the same locations to view exactly the same sights due to the crocodiles having their own territory as do the birds have their own viewing trees. It was luck of the draw, if the wildlife was present at your time of arrival.

The Yellow Water Cruise was different again to the Guluyambi Cultural Cruise on the East Alligator River and different to the Mary River Wetland Cruise departing from Rockhole Billabong. 

For us the Mary River Wetland Cruise would be the most memorable, possibly due to being our first cruise experience in this region, possibly due to being a much smaller vessel enabling some closer viewing and the Mary River Cruise didn’t seem to be a staged event. 

Our next target was to view Maguk Plunge Pool. We had repeatedly been advised by people the plunge pool was magnificent but they also all said the 12 kilometre stretch of road was very rough. 

We initially drove a couple of kilometres past the turnoff for Maguk and unhitched the caravan at Gungurul bush camp. The tow tug tyres were deflated to a softer pressure in anticipation of a rough road into Maguk. 

Entering onto Maguk road it appeared that the road had just been graded and half a kilometre down the road we came across the grader attending to the final bits of grading the road. It was one of the better dirt roads that we had travelled along. There was also a campground located 10 kilometres along the road in a delightful bush setting which was predominately shaded by large trees. We found a couple of locations with reasonable sunshine and without viewing the plunge pool we returned to Gungurul bush camp collected our caravan returning to Maguk campground setting camp in a much nicer setting. 

Unfortunately when we stopped to back into our camp spot we discovered that we had a flat rear tyre on the tow tug. It looked like a sharp rock had gone into the middle of the tread leaving a big hole and we hadn’t noticed. It may have happened about a kilometre back when we had an approaching vehicle and there just happened to be a low tree limb on our side of the road where we met the other vehicle and we locked up our wheels stopping to allow the other vehicle to go by so that we could deviate around the low tree limb? The tyre was just 4 months old with 7000 kilometres travelled.

We were hot and dusty by the time we set camp and completed our original journey to the plunge pool for a welcomed cool down and wash. The water was beautiful without any chill factor but that could have been due to do the current climatic conditions with daily weather forecasts of 35C temperatures.

On our walk along the trail back from the pool we managed to get a couple of photographs of an unknown bird and when we got back to the caravan out came the bird book to identify our new bird a Rainbow Pitta.

Rainbow Pitta

Maguk campground was a very nice setting amongst beautiful large green trees with spread out individual camp sites. By evening it was full of other campers, mostly of overseas origin and they all had to have large fires. This did concern us as there was no water at the campground and the undergrowth was thick with dry grass over a metre in height between the campsites. We could have easily stayed at this location for a few days but concerns for our safety if a fire did occur was too frightening and we decided to move on. 

Our next destination was Gunlom campground the location of the highly promoted, “Gunlom Natural Infinity Pool,” along with a clear plunge pool at the base of a waterfall. The 37 kilometre gravel road to this location had also been the subject of many complaints about being in poor condition. Once again our time of arrival was impeccable as the road had obviously been graded within the last few days. Grinners are winners!

Day time temperatures had increased by about 5 degrees in the last week, possibly signalling the approach of the next season with high temperatures followed by the onset of humid conditions not far away. It felt every bit of the predicted 36 C degree temperatures forecast by the bureau of meteorology (inside temperatures were now regularly showing 37 - 38 C with it feeling cooler in the caravan with the fans operating than outside) and every time we set or packed up camp we were left feeling a bit tired. Our daily walking activities were now prioritised for early morning or late afternoon. 

The Gunlom Natural Infinity Pool walking track, a distance of 2 kilometre return was classified as difficult, steep and strenuous. We completed this walk late afternoon and our leg muscles did feel the day’s effort. The water was very pleasant and we were very glad we had made the effort as it was a magnificent setting. We must have been having a good day as a large mob left on our arrival and just as we were leaving another tour bus group was arriving.

Gunlom Natural Infinity Pool

Gunlom Natural Infinity Pool

Gunlom Natural Infinity Pool looking down towards lower pool

Hot days with a mix of exercise = good night sleeping. 

We also returned to the lifestyle of immersing our bodies into the Gunlom plunge pool waters at the base of the waterfalls a few times during the day, cooling our bodies throughout the hot day. These waterfalls were the highest we had seen where you were permitted to swim once they had been checked for the presence of crocodiles. It was an impressive setting.

Part of the enjoyment of travelling also includes some delightful food with some of our Kakadu meals.

Thai meal

Fresh campfire cooked damper

Kakadu for us was simply awesome. We spent just shy of two weeks exploring Kakadu and there were quite a few locations we missed that we would have liked the opportunity to experience.