Darwin and the War

Darwin, Darwin Darwin.  What to say.  Yes, they were in the war, sort of.  They were bombed 62 times by the Japanese and bravely defended their turf.  And I dare say, apart from a cyclone in 1974, nothing much has happened there.  So, we move on.

We were hoping for more interesting sites as we headed to Litchfield National Park and the Lost City with Captain Ken and his crew.  Well, that was a goose chase as the city is still lost and the waterfalls we visited were nice, but not so grand.  As the lady said at the hotel, "you've seen one waterfall, you've seen them all".  Maybe we are a wee bit jaded these days.  

But these magnetic termite mounds were rather cool.  They are always facing N/S and are thin as paper.  And that's all I'm going to say about termites.  

Another sunny day in paradise. Left to right: Denise, Lil, Ken, Jens, Betty, Evelyn.

Wangi Falls in Litchfield.  

As Ken, Lil, Denise and Betty fly off to Cairns, Jens and I are taking the long road back to Queensland.  We made a brief stop in at Katherine to see the Gorge at sunrise and then took a shortcut on a very long and very dusty dirt road.  

The gorgeous Katherine Gorge.

Now, the shortcut might be shorter in total kilometers but it was a solid 12 hours of driving in the real outback where you have to drive through creeks and watch for wandering stock (free range beef is definitely on the menu on the highway buffet).  I was never so happy to see a paved road (or bitumen as they call it here) but we still had miles to go before it became a proper highway with two lanes.  We made it over the State line just as the sun was setting on the second day of this part of the trip.  Only two more days before we hit the East coast.

Free range or wandering stock.  What could they be wandering about?  Or are they sinking?

Crossing another creek looking for crocs.