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The Bungle Bungles to Darwin

Tuesday 7^th July 232 Km

Another warm night but with the netting that Adrian had put in, it was more comfortable. We were awake, early, about 6 o'clock, to find a lot of activity everywhere. By 7 o'clock, just about everybody had left including Cheryl and Garry who came to say goodbye. We had a cup of tea outside, it was already hot. Adrian discovered that there was a leak from the water tank and he spent some time making it at least goable for the moment. I walked into the back door which opens right up [but not high enough!] which hurt and was a bit silly. We both had a swim in the pool which was very refreshing, and then a shower and got ourselves organised to leave by 9.30, by which time there was hardly anyone there at all. We were driving through splendid scenery this morning with magnificent hills either side of us looking very attractive, particularly with a blue sky, but we did get an increasing amount of little white fluffy clouds. We turned off after an hour or so, where there was a scenic look out, and this was looking out to a range of very rugged cliffs, which Adrian took a slide of. A coach party arrived soon afterwards, luckily only to take a photo, and we sat in the incredible heat - nearly 100°F.

After another 30 minutes we stayed on the Great Northern Rd towards Wyndham and after another 10kms we passed the entrance to the Gibb River Road and we turned in there and drove around to the information bay, so we could say at least we did this end of the Gibb River Road! - it didn't look too bad at this point.
In another 15kms we turned off for lunch to a place called The Grotto, it said one kilometre, on an unsurfaced road. We'd been trying not to go on on unsurfaced roads at the moment due to various reasons [like we'd just washed all the bedclothes]. This was an Australian kilometre, it certainly seemed further than that and when we got to the place it was just a bare bit of parking space, in intense heat over 100 °F. The Grotto was far below and we might have climbed down to it but we certainly wouldn't have wanted to climb up again in the heat - it was even too hot for lunch. So Adrian put out the awning, which made just enough shade to sit under for lunch and occasionally a nice cool breeze came. We returned to the main road and after about 30 minutes we came to Wyndham and we thought in this intense heat that we ought to go into a caravan site and have some electricity, so we could have air conditioning, so we headed through quite pleasant scenery to Wyndham Caravan Site, there was no swimming pool there which was a downer. So we put the air conditioning on and got settled in and then went for showers to cool ourselves down. Later we decided to go out and do a bit of exploring. We went first to the port part of Wyndham and explored around there. Wyndham was on the Cambridge Gulf with several river valleys joining at this point and cattle used to be exported from here, but the old part at Wyndham Port was just sleepy, like a film set, and was closed up with nothing there. What seemed to be in profusion were birds, lots and lots of white parrots and lots of birds of prey. The road went up across lots of mud flats but unlike Derby there were attractive hills on one side and water in different directions on the other, so it was far more attractive. We parked on little bit that used to be an old jetty and walked into this funny little sleepy town, nobody about at all, and we came to a little shop. There were white corrugated shed places here. There was a motel but nothing seemed to be open except the shop which said that it was open and air conditioned and so we thought we'd go in to buy an ice cream. We were served by a 'Ronnie Barker' character. He was there in his air conditioned shop, watching the telly. Adrian thought that we were the only people that had been in there that day. We bought some cold drink, as we hadn't got any fizzy or orange juice, and asked him about ice cream. He said 'She's a bit low, only get them delivered once a week', but we bought a Magnum and thanked him.
He said were we going up to the lookout, people go to watch the sunset there. So we went back down to the little former jetty, it was just a little bit where we could park the van above the water and enjoyed our Magnum with this nice view of wooded inlets everywhere. At this port area Adrian had liked some old engines and things which were out in a little exhibition, perhaps the best part about the place and travelling around we followed signs to 'the Residency', which was part of an early building, but all it was was a bit of wall three or four feet high with a mark on the sides of it and the ships used to use it to guide them when they came in. I don't like to belittle it, but buildings like that are just everywhere in England and it didn't really do anything to us at all. Then we thought we'd go and look at the lookout which we had planned to do the next day. This entailed driving back and through the main town, if you could call it that, the habitation area of Wyndham as opposed to the little port area and following the sign posts.
Gary had said to us yesterday that it was worth going to, even if it seemed to go on forever and we'd been told that it was tarmacked and so we proceeded there. When we got to the top, we found, that like Cable Beach, it was where people came to watch the sunset. There was a little van there selling burgers and things and there was also a barbecue area, where people were sat on their seats , some with champagne, and everybody had cameras and there was a lovely atmosphere. People were just waiting to watch as the sun went down. We joined them and it was quite wonderful, looking out at these different valleys. The area was a Lions project again and there was a little orientation map telling you what was where, which was helpful.

The hills on the way to Wyndham

Adrian videoed and then we were just about to leave, the sun had gone down and the sky was going a lovely red colour, and we wanted get down before dark, darkness happens very quickly here, when a chap by the name of Tony spoke to us and asked us if we were enjoying it. We of course got into conversation, and he and his wife were touring in a little Bedford van. It was years old - 60's and he'd used it for work for years and then he'd adapted it for these trips, a lot of which were on rough roads. It looked very small inside, and she didn't seem the sort of woman that would cope with this, but she obviously did. She wasn't a lady of many words when we met her, but he could talk the hind leg off a donkey and told us all sorts about himself and his six children. He had a couple of health problems, something with his heart and a hernia operation which he'd had done, he showed us the scar, and told us that it had delayed them by two months. They'd come up from New South Wales in about two weeks across the middle on a rough road.
We made our farewells, we almost thought he was going to get in the van with us, he was so keen to chat. He'd got a big map stuck on the outside of his van of their routes. We then made our way back down the hill, very thoughtfully signposted most of the way for people coming back down in the dark, because it was quite a difficult route and back to the caravan site, where we plugged into the electric and got the air conditioning going. It was quite a bearable temperature though by now.
We didn't have a good night - it was very hot. Adrian had put up netting at lots of the windows and we'd had the air conditioning on and various things were itching. But apart from that, there seem to be a lot of Aboriginal shouting well into the night as well right through the night. And there was a mozzie which kept waking us just as we went to our slumbers, we never ever did get him. At one time in trying to chase it, I noticed a funny little cocoon thing on one of our freshly washed curtains and then going to investigate it, something plopped down on the bed between us and it was a praying mantis. So all told it was a rather unsettled night.

Sunset from the 5 rivers lookout, Wyndhham

Thursday 8^th July 121 Km

It was very windy as we woke up, but clear blue sky and already hot. People were already busy, at 6.45 - we had a cup of tea and then breakfast outside. Adrian tried to do some more fixing of netting to the windows. We had showers and were ready to leave about 9 o'clock. We briefly had on a radio station which we didn't stay on for long because we didn't much like the music or the presenter’s manner, but he had a bit of trivia and mentioned Marianne Faithful and then said who was she - Oh she was old singer of the 60's, can you believe - we could well believe.
We called in briefly at the tourist information which is now housed in one of the garages, Kimberly Motors, not where it had been before - Lonely Planet actually said there wasn't one, so it was obviously opened up again. We then went on to see the Dreamtime Park which had large statues of an Aborigine man, woman and child and a kangaroo.

We called at the baker's and bought a croc pie, a big gooey pastry and some rolls, then posted the cards at the post office and went into a supermarket, quite well stocked and got some butter and some meat. Then we set off out of Wyndham and hadn't gone far when a gentleman overtook us and stopped us, he thought that petrol tank was leaking but of course it was the water tank.
We saw a sign to Paris Creek Bird Sanctuary by Marlgu Billabong and we would have liked to have gone down there but it was an unsurfaced road and we were worried about the water tank. We decided to go anyway and if more water leaked out, we had to have it mended anyway. So we set off on this very rough road, 8 Km and exceedingly hot. We stopped at what was the ruins of an old telegraph station and had coffee there and the gooey cake that we'd bought in Wyndham and then weren't sure whether to drive the next bit down further, but we decided it was too hot to walk there and back so we did.. We then had an absolute delight in this bird sanctuary, there was a walkway with a little walk out to the water and also the second one which was to a hide. There were beautiful water lilies everywhere, and we saw lots of water birds and birds of all types, cormorants, egrets and all manner of different birds which we had yet to look up and find out what they were.

Adrian by 'Dreamtime Statues' with Kapok bush in front, Wyndham

I thought the scenery was lovely and there was a little sanctuary in the centre of it, where we stayed for half an hour or more watching, filming and photographing. There were myriads of tiny fish in the water and we had a really lovely time, and were glad we had made the effort to get there. One of the birds we thought we saw there was a crane that they call here a Brolga and there were some birds walking on the water lily pads that are called a Jacanas.
We left and found that after a short distance, there was a four wheeled drive track which we knew came back to the main road, and which we had passed on the way and so we decided to take this as it was very dry and so we hoped it was goable. In fact it was a better road than the one we travelled in on with its corrugations, and it was very lovely travelling along this road, which was quite a long distance again. We arrived back onto the tarmac safely and headed for Kunanurra. We pulled in for lunch at a little parking bay that we thought was ideal as it had some shade, but the amount of flies we decided were going to be too much for us, so we sat inside in the heat. Adrian had opened and netted as many windows as possible and I sat on the bed and he sat on a chair nearby which was cooler than at the engine end [the engine of the coaster was under the floor at the front and so it was always a problem after a days travel as the heat came straight up into the van, which is why we always needed the air conditiong to cool the van down]. The lady must have mixed up the croc pie, because I reckoned it was just a vegetable pie she gave us, she was a bit unsure at the time.
We soon came to Kununrra in a wonderful setting, it is just beautiful scenery around here - wonderful stark mountains. We first located a place where they said they would fix the water tank tomorrow. We then headed for one of the caravan sites, there are several here, but some sound more promising than others. The first was full and the second one, which is on Lake Kununara had three powered spaces, we need the power for the air conditioning, and we found one that suited us very close to the lake. Having settled in and put on the air conditioning, we went for a delightful swim in this lake, the mountains around - one they call the sleeping Buddha because that's what it looks like.

There were a couple leaving as we arrived and they said that there was a saltwater crocodile that had just come out of the water. He stayed on the other side of the billabong the whole time we were there to make it feel very exciting and very privileged to be there in this beautiful situation.

The beautiful Marlgu Billabong

The 'salty' at the Marlgu Billabong

Then Adrian proceeded to get to work removing the water tank, and sawed his thumb in the process. After he'd removed the tank, we thought we'd have a walk around the site, and we hadn't gone far and we came across a chap who was doing Bowen technique ‘Bowtech’ massage and thought it might be a good idea for me to have my back done. So this we did, it cost $20 which is a lot cheaper than England. He spent a good half hour and we'll have to wait and see what difference it makes.
We continued afterwards with a little walk around the very pleasant site, which had a nice sort of atmosphere, 'Beautiful beside the water' and that's just what it was. There was a moon looking almost full high in the sky, it was only a couple of days away from full moon, the sun had gone down and the colour of the sky was glorious over the water. We cooked steak outside and ate outside, it was very warm - upper 70's F until very late. We came in about 9.30 but there had been an annoying amount of mossies unfortunately, which seemed to go for me particularly tonight, despite being covered with anti-mossie stuff.

Adrian after a swim in Lake Kununara

Thursday, 9^th July 56 Km

We were awake early with birdsong and great activity at 6 o'clock. We got up late at about 7.00 am, had a cup of tea which we drunk outside. We then had a refreshing swim in the lake which was quite rough this morning, it was quite windy and pleasantly cool. We then had a shower and afterwards had breakfast, sitting outside in what was by then the warm sunshine. We left sometime after 9.00 am, we had decided to stay there another day. We headed first for the welders where Adrian dropped off the water tank - the man didn't seem to think that was going to be a problem. We then went into town if you can call it that. I tried the two photographers, but unfortunately neither of them did matt finish which was a bit of a downer. We then went into a travel agents and inquired about flights to Bali and Timor.
We then headed off for Hidden Valley National Park which is right on the doorstep of Kununara, a very small National Park. There were some little walking trails, which we attempted in the heat, we climbed to the top of a hill where there was a look out. There was named plants on one of the trails and we were pleased to see that the yellow flowering tree, bare with flowers on the top, is a Kapok tree with yellow rounded flowers at the end of the branches. There was a sort of tree heather called a Turkey Bush, a purpley colour.

The river was very enticing as it was very hot, but we weren't able to swim because apparently there were saltwater crocodiles there. However, we did have our lunch sitting in a shady little nook, beside a little offset of this river, far enough back so crocodiles didn't come and get us [evidently if you sit on the river bank, crocs can leap out of the water, grab you and pull you back in before you can say ouch]. It was exceedingly pleasant sitting there. We spoke to a couple from Melbourne, who thought we had a good 'outfit'. On returning to the town we drove up to Kelly's Knob, a rocky outcrop overlooking the surrounding area, where we had a viewpoint. We then went and collected the water tank, which had been welded to Adrians satisfaction and went on to the shopping centre, where we shopped in Cole's including the bottle shop. Time seemed to rush away, but we went over afterwards to see if there might be a bookshop, where we could get a Lonely Planet on Bali, but the only bookshop we found was part of Coles - we did find another travel agent.
We got some money out of a machine and then returned to the caravan site at 5 o'clock just to see the sun descending and an almost full moon rising the other side - very pretty. We soon went for a little walk out around the end of the campsite, to a bit which they call the Lily Pond. We had had to move our camping position as there was obviously a misunderstanding as to how long we were staying, but it didn't matter as it was dark almost immediately and we were leaving in the morning. We were still not far from the lake. It had not been as hot or crowded in there as the previous day.
Adrian cooked pork chops outside, it was pleasantly warm out there with only one or two mossies, and there weren't any flies, very nice. A motorhome came in next to us with a family of four, who Adrian suspected were from America, which they were. A teenage boy came and asked if we knew where the fawcett was. That absolutely flummoxed me, but he wanted the 'water tap'. They came from Louisiana and were away for 11 weeks, they'd already been to Tahiti and some of the other islands. They'd come up from Perth and were going on the Sydney, so getting about. We walked across to the lake before coming in about 9.00 pm, it was still 76°F. It was quite choppy as it had been this morning and the moon was shining down brightly, almost full moon and catching little droplets and all sorts of things on the leaves.

We decided it was too hot to make tea and coffee where we were parked, so we came out of the park and actually stopped just beside the road, which made a pleasant stop because there was a little bit of shade and no flies and as we pulled in we saw two red tailed black cockatoos. We then did a little tour of the irrigated plains formed by the irrigation from the Ord River. It was mostly sugar cane that we could see in the bit that we went around, and we ended up this little tour going on a short unsurfaced section to the Ivanhoe Crossing. This was a very wide crossing of the river through water, which we didn't attempt, but while we were there, several people did, so we were able to video and photograph them going across.

Adrian beside a Turkey Bush, Hidden Valley NP

Vehicle going across the Ivanhoe crossing near Kununurra

Friday 10^th July 77 Km

A cooler night, we were awake early and it was not so busy as as the previous day. Adrian fixed the water tank back on but was concerned that it was still leaking. We had breakfast outside and a quick refreshing swim in the lake and a shower. We left just before 9 o'clock and headed for the welders again. We were an hour or more there, where the chap did various things, took the tank off and did some more welding and we hoped for the best because it still didn't seem quite right, it seemed to be leaking slightly [the water tanks were made of aluminium and welded along the edges. The chap said it was very difficult to patch weld old tanks as where the new weld ended, it always put stress on the old weld]. I'd enjoyed the time reading from Lonely Planet of Northern Territory in preparation for soon being in that ‘state’.
We then made our way to the Celebrity Park on Lily Lagoon which was the end bit of Kunanurra Lake, and there the little park had trees planted by personalities, clearly labelled with the type of tree and the date etc. However the only one that we really knew was Rolf Harris, but we saw that tree and had our coffee there and the cakes we bought the previous day. It was a bit hot in the sun and we found a little shady gazebo which was actually quite windy. It was 11 o'clock by the time we left this very nice spot with a clear blue sky and pleasantly warm, hot even. We now headed for Lake Argyle stopping just before to view the Argyle Homestead, a house which was originally where Lake Argyle is now and it had been rebuilt there and set up as a museum, of the Dirac family who lived in this area.
We continued down to the Lake Argyle and the tourist village and went past it and over the dam and found a nice little shady picnic area, beside the Ord River, where we had our lunch. We were bombarded by birds, which we think were bower birds. We then made our way to the nearby tourist village and we booked ourselves on the three o'clock boat trip on a boat called the bowerbird. This is also the only place you can stay around here, so we booked into the campsite for the night and proceeded there. We had an hour to go so we got ourselves ready to go on what they call the ‘sunset trip’ as the sun sets at about 5 o'clock. We then found out that we were lucky to go on this trip as the four, people in the neighbouring caravan spoke to us, as we were leaving, and they had tried to book on this trip and had been told it was full. There had obviously been a cancellation after they'd asked and we'd got on it.
Off we set, and had a bus ride down to where the boat left from and then had a really enjoyable two and a half hours on Lake Argyle. I can't say that there was a lot to see scenically, because there were just rather barren hills around and we didn't actually go very far at all. Lake Argyle is very large and we just saw a tiny corner of the top of it [All bodies of water seemed to be measured against Sydney Harbour and this was 9 times larger. It is also the largest storage reservoir in Australia]. We had an excellent person who took us on this trip, who was guide and captain, and was a very pleasant good looking young fellow. We saw rock wallabies - we'd seen them before, but it was nice to see them again. The captain obviously knew where to look out for things like on all these trips, and wildlife comes to expect it. We saw a freshwater crocodile but it didn't seem to want to come and eat the cat fish which he was supposed to do, but there were lots of lots of fish that did come, which we fed with bread. A cormorant dived in the middle of it all and upset the whole lot, but it was lovely to see him diving under the water. We also saw some euros close to.

It was really nice being out in the pleasant temperature on this lake. We then came back to a position where the sun had just gone down giving a lovely light on the other side of the lake. In the literature about the trip it said we could have a swim and to bring your bathers and we’d come prepared for that, with them under our other clothes but in fact apart from three kids and two chaps, no one else went swimming, so we felt we deserved the champagne that was handed around after - there was free tea and coffee if you wanted that as well, we'd had a cup of tea previously.

Wallaroo (Euro), Lake Argyle

After the champagne people suddenly got far more chatty than they had been, and the atmosphere for the last half hour as we came in, was very joyous and came back feeling very happy. We'd spoken to a few different interesting people on the boat. I'd spoken to a couple from the Gold Coast again, and Adrian had spoken to a chap from the Wheatfields.
We'd been given a voucher to have a free drink in the bar for 'happy hour', and there was just time to get that, so we had one beer and bought another, two different ones but we couldn't tell which one was which - Adrian thought they were both awful. When we'd arrived there, there was a video on of the making of the dam and as the television was also on, it was a bit like a pub. We'd been told that the fish there was wonderful, which was supposed to be cat fish, so we ordered some but in fact it was a bit stale and wasn't that brilliant. After the ‘happy hour’ the bar had emptied of people. I’d spoken to a couple who came from outback Northern Territory. It was full moon tonight and we returned to the van about 7 o'clock and realised how early it was. We spent the time inside reading, but we did go for a walk out around the site before retiring for the night which in fact was quite windy and quite cool.

Rosie enjoying bubbly after a sunset swim in Lake Argyle

The sun goes down on Lake Argyle

Saturday 11^th July 208 Km

We were awake again early. After today we should be changing time by an hour and a half, so things won't be quite the same. People were up and about by 6 o'clock. We had a cup of tea. It was still quite windy, but with a clear blue sky and hot sun. After breakfast sitting outside, we went for a swim in the pool, which was quite a good sized pool, the surface looked a bit grungy when we first got there but it was a refreshing swim followed by a shower and we were ready to leave about 9 o'clock. We had hoped to buy some fish from the neighbouring fishery, but on pulling in there, we realised it only seemed to be open between 5.00 pm and 6.00 pm which wasn't much good to us. We continued back down towards the dam and went two different viewpoints with really wonderful views down to the dam and to the Ord River. It was glorious in the sunshine and blue sky.

There was a lovely tree with red flowers at the end of seemingly dead branches looking rather like large japonica flowers called a Kurrajong tree.

Looking down on Lake Argyle,

Ord River Gorge by Lake Argyle

Sunday 12^th July. 123 Km

We awoke just before 7.00 am and it was just getting light which seemed a much more sensible time than the 5.30 that we had until yesterday. We had our tea in bed and then had breakfast outside and then someone started up a noisy generator. I do think they are the infernal nuisance as you could imagine, it spoils the peace of anywhere. This place has a lot of lovely Boab trees and we had a brief bit of birdsong, but it was drowned out by generators. We left at about 9 o'clock and after a few miles we came to a turn off to a ‘lookout’. It said four wheel drive recommended and we soon saw that it wasn't for us to drive up so I suggested walking up, but we walked for miles and miles. In Oz they don't often tell you how far these direction pointers are pointing to and if they do they may not right so perhaps doesn't help. We were going to give up, Adrian first and then me, but then he said to carry on. Eventually we came to a place which said sunset lookout and we were meant to be able to look down over the Victoria River, but the track still went on, it could have been for miles, so we returned, much hotter, and we'd taken a good hour over this walk.
We stopped soon after at Timber Creek for diesel, and I also bought some butter. We had coffee here and went into a tourist place and picked up one or two more leaflets. We stopped soon at the Kuwong lookout, which is what we thought we'd got to the first time and this was a much more reasonable 250 metres walk to look out to the Kuwong Range of hills and then walked back again, plenty of flies of course. A bit further on we stopped at Joe's Creek, and here we had our lunch, It was very hot and the picnic table wasn't really in the shade. There was a walking trail here around this wonderful gorge-like escarpment, which we followed for over an hour. Walk was a term they gave it, but it was a scramble up the gorge side and along and down. It was amongst Victoria River palms and we saw bowerbird nests there too. It was a well marked trail with little arrows, but very rugged. We also saw a double barred Finch, I saw a purple crowned wren, and we saw a beeeater again, along with the nests of the bowerbirds. By the time we'd returned from our walk and left, it was 2.45.

Just up the road we turned off for a few 100 yards to what was called Deadhorse Springs and this was two little pools of water, very close to the lake. There was a wonderful rock formation with the deep shadows, blue sky, red rock, green spiky grass. There was a couple of crocodiles in the pool by the lake, and we saw some black winged stilts and masked lapwings. It would seem that the masked lapwing, is the same bird as a spur winged plover that we had seen many months ago. It wasn't far back to the main road and then after a couple of miles we came to Northern Territory, where it said ‘camera point’, we weren't sure what for, perhaps just to take the border between the two 'states'. We didn't go through anything in our direction, we had wondered about any quarantine.
We stopped soon after, just as the road went into Keep River National Park and put our watches on an hour and a half which made it 12.30. pm, so it was really lunchtime, but had late morning coffee, which we should have had earlier. We continued for an hour or so through quite pleasant country with interesting hills and of course the blue sky and some lovely Boab trees, and we pulled into a picnic site for lunch at the new time of around about 2 o'clock – it would have been 12.30. There were quite a few people here, some were playing music all the time, which wasn't unpleasant and they had a little fire going. Some people gave us apples and tomatoes because they were going into Western Australia and knew they couldn't take them in, because although we'd had no quarantine there was one going in the opposite direction. We gave our guide to free camping in Western Australia to another couple with a Germanic sounding accent who proceeded to put up a little trailer tent. We were besieged by flies again.
We proceeded a bit further along the road and it became flatter and not so attractive. We looked in at one rest area and decided not to stay there and then pulled into a second place which was in Gregory National Park. This was a minimal fee site, it cost us $5 - £2, but it was very crowded. There were campers of various sorts, but we found a spot and then went for a walk around and down to Victoria River, which has saltwater crocodiles in it, so you can't swim - very frustrating, and also there was really nowhere to walk to here. Coming back we talked two couples from New South Wales opposite to us, who were travelling a lot of time, they were quite chatterers. They'd got a generator to go on later, which would be a nuisance, and the generators certainly were a nuisance. I can't think of anything worse when you are camping to impose that on other people. We did a lot of sorting of Western Australia stuff, now being out of Western Australia.
This seemed to be a bad luck place really because next to us was another coaster and was a chap who had obviously been drinking plenty and we'd heard him chatting loudly to the people opposite. He nabbed Adrian as he went out to cook the steak for supper. He came along with a beer in one hand and fag in the other and thought he'd 'sticky beak' and look over our coaster, which he did. He invited us to look at his and Adrian went along, and found it was actually very primitive. We ate outside, but with the noise of the generators and a smell permeating from somewhere - not the loo as it was a long way away, but we decided it was too much. So we went in and did a bit more sorting of cuttings etc. but for some reason, I felt incredibly tired, although the hour had gone in our favour and not the other way.

Kurrajong tree

We turned down a long unsurfaced track to the old Victoria River Crossing and then it was quite a long walk to the actual crossing, but by now the Victoria River had practically disappeared and it was just a very hot and fly infested walk. Just before the township of Victoria River, which meant a roadhouse, there was a turn off to Gregory Park, which we took, it said three but we went at least 3 kilometres, and the track just stopped, I thought they were working on it, so we didn't do any more investigating, we'd done a lot of walking in the heat today. We returned and carried on a few more miles, when we came to Sullivans Rest area, which is now a minimal fee paying area rather similar to last nights. We both had a shower in our van, the first time for weeks and weeks we'd done that, and we had a little walk out. There was a little signposted walk but it actually only went about 50 yards along the riverbank. We tried out for the first time the fly head nets that we'd bought, and apart from looking silly, they were excellent at stopping the flies going up your nose, in your ears, in your eyes and in your mouth. I cooked a chicken stir fry outside, and we had it with a nice bottle of wine, very pleasant,and there was a full moon.

Victoria Palm at Joe's Creek

Rosie on our 'walk' at Joe's Creek

Aboriginal paintings at Joe's Creek

We then walked across the site as we'd seen a campfire and heard some country music from another bit of this area. Someone else had a generator which was annoying, but we walked up to the campfire where there were three couples. We got chatting to them and actually stayed chatting, particularly to one called Gary from Adelaide who was there with his wife, Chris. There was Bob and Margaret who had been on the road for two and a half years and another couple who'd visited England a couple of years ago. We chatted until 11.30, when we had to come back to wash up, so it was bed at midnight. It had been surprisingly chilly. We heard a dingo wail.

Sullivan Creek 2024 (Samuel Thomas )

Monday 13^th July. 198 Km

We were awake around about 7 o'clock to blue sky and had breakfast outside. We said goodbye to Gary and were ready to leave just after 9.00 by which time a lot of other people had gone. The land initially was quite hilly, but became flatter, slightly undulating. We pulled in for coffee at a picnic area where there were lots of birds, but we were unable to identify them. There were also drifts of pink pincushiony everlasting flowers and also trees of yellow wattle, a bigger variety than we'd been used to seeing - very attractive.
Everything seemed to happen, or not happen as we got to Katherine. We located the post office and found we'd got some post. In fact there was a lot of letters, but before we read them we thought we try to find somewhere to take the films in, and also a bakers for some rolls, which in fact we never found. In driving around, thinking perhaps we'd have lunch with the odd bit of bread we'd got, a great lump fell off my tooth, almost the whole of my back tooth, which was very disconcerting. We were then just pulling into the tourist info, so we went in and found out where a dentist was. I then did locate a photo shop, we had found one prior to this, which only did gloss. The one I went to, did matt, so I left three films there and then went to the dentist and made an appointment for 4.30.
We then hunted around a bit more in the heat of the day, and eventually found a nice little spot right under the bridge, which goes over the Katherine River. It was hard to imagine in this huge area beside the bridge that this whole valley was flooded back six months ago.[In January 1998 a major flood devastated the town, and the area was declared a national disaster. The flood resulted from the 300–400 mm of rainfall brought by Cyclone Les that caused the already full Katherine River to peak at 20.4 metres. The floodwaters inundated the town and much of the surrounding region, requiring the evacuation of many residents. The flood covered an area of 1,000 square kilometres, affected 1,100 homes and cut off many roads in and out of Katherine. Three people drowned - Wikipedia]. [In March 2026 it happened again only this time t was only 19.1 metres].

We set the table and chairs up there and had our lunch in the shade of the bridge beside the river and read through our post, which was very nice to do. We had a letter from Paul with photos of his new home, letters from Rosemary Richards, Gilbert and Angela, Rosemarie, Bateman, a postcard from Laure and one from Hil and Jill, amongst some other official things. Afterwards, having looked in a bookshop and tried to sort out whether we go to Bali or Timor we returned to Woolworths to do a shop, where there was also a bottle shop. We booked a trip in the Katherine Gorge for the next day.
I left at the end of it to go along to the dentist. There I had a major sized filling of the one that had fallen out and taken a bit of tooth with it. The dentist who was a pleasant quiet man had to build up the tooth with some pegs to make the filling stick and so that in the future sometime, I can have it crowned. Obviously for this rather large sized filling I had to have an injection and I felt a bit drugged up and dopey.
We then left and drove down towards the Katherine Gorge. There was a parking place in Katherine town where we could have stayed but there was rather a lot of coloured people lying around and that didn't make us feel too keen about staying there. All the caravan sites in Katherine itself were full, so on the road to Katherine Gorge we managed to find a little pull off parking space and watched the sun go down there. We looked at our photos, the three films that I had had done were very good. Adrian proceeded to cook scrambled egg outside.

Pictures of the Gorge and Katherine in Jan 1998 (not mine!)

View of the Katherine Gorge rail bridge from the road bridge - The water was about 2 metres above it (streetview 2008)

Tuesday 14^th July 35 km

It was cool in the night , but became hot and sunny very quickly. We breakfasted outside and we're ready to leave at 9.10. We soon arrived at Katherine Gorge where we went into the visitor centre had a look around. It was very hot, and we got prepared to go on the 11 o'clock boat. We then had a four hour trip on the gorge, the boat took 65 passengers. We thought it was a little bit of a kibosh the way it was organised, we all queued together and then the two hour people went on one boat and the four hour on another. This somehow seemed to work, except that our boat was apparently overloaded by four people, and so four people were asked to leave and had their money refunded, which luckily they seemed happy about.
We hated the 'cattle truck' aspect of it all. but the gorge was spectacular and I enjoyed it very much. We had to walk about half kilometre between one gorge and the next where the river went over an area of rapids.

There were Aboriginal paintings on the cliffs here and but it was a real scramble across the rocks. Some people must have been even less fit than I was and struggled and then it was a scramble to get back onto the boats again. The nicest part was at the end, or as far as we went, which was part of the third gorge. We had a swim in the river here and that was lovely.

Adrian walking between boats in Katherine Gorge

Then it was "right time to get out, there's a piece of cake up there and help yourself to a drink if you want it". Then back on the boat and off back down the river and we arrived back at 3.00 pm. We felt it seemed as though they'd never done it before - it reminded us of the boat from Greece to Italy - but these boats go every day during the dry season. Two hour boats, four hour boats, and 8 hour boats, 1000's of people make this trip and we thought it was rather lacking in organizations , maybe that's through our English eyes. [the path down to the boats was through a deep sand cutting, perhaps 5 metres wide and the guide told us that all this sand was deposited during the floods and the path was only a tiny area of what used to be an open space, but they had taken out 800 lorry loads of sand out to create it!]
It was still very hot when we returned. We drove back a few miles to a site called Shady Lane Caravan site on the outskirts of Katherine and found ourselves a pitch and then put the washing in and went in search of the river. When we got there we thought it looked very inviting, but we weren't prepared, so had to go in, in pants and T-shirt. We had a lovely swim, and came back and hung the washing out. We found that the phone was in contact so rang Tom and spoke to him and wrote postcards to Paul & Nicky and Kathryn. It was very warm - still upper 80's°F. There were lots of stars.

On the boat in Katherine Gorge

Adrian having a swim in the last gorge that we went to

Wednesday 15^th July 78 Km

We were awake quite early with lots of bird songs, some sounded like phones. We had a cup of tea. We went and had showers before having breakfast outside. We collected the washing just before we left which had taken a long time to dry as the sun was only just getting to it, and Adrian filled the van with water. He'd done the dirty deed last night and emptied the loo . It was 9.30 when we left and drove towards Katherine and soon came to Knots Crossing which was the original crossing point for Katherine and this was a delightful waterfall on the Katherine River with a crossing which was always under water going across the river . We walked through this in our sandals because they were rather dusty from walking down to the river last night.

We continued into Katherine and wanted to sort out the the Timor business which we did eventually do, we went to a travel agent and we've booked to go to Timor from next Wednesday, a week today for three days for $399 each, plus departure tax. That being all sorted out, we bought a cake each in Tomos Bakery which we couldn't find the other day as it had moved and then we went to the post office, posted the cards for Paul & Kathryn and bought a birthday card in readiness for Tom. I just happened to see one suitable but had to wait in the post office as always. It was then almost 12 o'clock by the time we'd sorted it all out, so we headed just a short distance to the hot springs at Katherine Hot Springs and we were delighted to find that this was a wonderful looking Polynesian type of river with waterfalls, rapids and pools. We had coffee and our cakes here first so it was well after midday when we went down there and joined lots of other people of all ages from babies up to people our age. Kids just leaping off the rocks into this swirling pool of very warm water and really was a very lovely feeling with palm trees growing across - quite exotic.

Adrian paddling across at Knotts Crossing

We left here and being well after lunchtime we headed just a little bit out of Katherine to what was called the Low Level Nature Reserve. This was just another bit of the river that had obviously been devastated by the floods and was being re-put together again. It was a lovely situation with palm trees and gorgeous rainbow honey eaters and black kites flying around. We made a roll and sat down by the water to have our lunch and then couldn't resist another swim. What was nice here was the current was flowing, it swished around so we didn't really have to do any swimming and by the bank it seemed the take one back up again to the other side like a natural little whirlpool.

Adrian at Katherine Hot Springs

We eventually left there about 2.30 and headed out of Katherine on this road, which took us the Stuart Highway but then we had to go over the bridge and back into Katherine as far as the place to get some diesel and some gas. This done we headed north about 30 miles and turned off on the road to Edith Falls. We collected some wood on the way which we had been told to do and when we got to Edith Falls there was a campsite but it was completely full. Fortunately adjacent to it was another little campsite - bush camping we were told later for which we did eventually have to pay $8. The park had also been affected by the floods but was a delightful waterhole - a big pool - at the end of steep cliffs with a waterfall coming into it. There were walks going out from here, some of which you couldn't do at the moment because of the effects of the floods. It was incredibly hot in the position that we were able to get into, so we went almost immediately for a swim, which cooled us rapidly as it was in the shade and the water was quite cool. We went back to our spot but it was still quite warm and we found some other people pitched quite close to us, so it wasn't ideal, but the general situation was very lovely.
We sat outside looking through some of the brochures and labelling photos and decided to make a fire with the couple next door to us. He was Arthur and she was Sandi, from the Sunshine Coast, and we each cooked our meal on it and we were about to eat it when the Ranger came along and said we shouldn't have a fire there, only in designated fireplaces, of which there weren't any in this area! We had an enjoyable meal chatting all the while, and had a look into their truck camper on the back of a four wheel drive pick up . It was still warm when we came in at 9.30. About 10 o'clock we walked down to the pool, taking the torch with us. We wondered at the absolutely myriads of stars in the sky, but when we got to pool, joy of joys, we saw lots and lots of turtles, swimming right into the shore. It was an absolutely unexpected and beautiful bonus to have at this place.

Low level bridge at Katherine

[The low level bridge at Katherine was a bridge 'thrown up' during World War 2 to give the army access to Darwin which was under threat from the Japanese. It is only usable from April to October as the water level is above it during summer]

Thursday 16^th July 161 Km

We had intended being up really early to go for our walk to the Top Pool, but in fact with the sun being behind the hill, we didn't wake up until nearly 8 o'clock. We left soon afterwards, after a cup of tea, and had this walk which took about half an hour, quite a puff but would have been much more so later in the day when it would have been hotter. It was a bit of a scramble at the far end as we got to the Top Pool but it was a delightful location like something out of a Hawaiian Image, Polynesian, and then we swam in this pool. There were several other young people in there swimming.

The walk should have been a circular one, but it said that due to flooding, you could only go there and back, which we did. We arrived back ready for our breakfast and afterwards we went down to the pool there and swam right across to the waterfall, which was about 150 metres and this again was absolutely delightful.

Rosie swimming in Edith Falls top pool

We came back from that and had a quick cold shower, the temperature of it didn't seem to matter. Then it was coffee time and by the time we left it was 11.45 am . We made our way the few miles back to the Stuart Highway and then continued north to Pine Creek and there we visited a little museum in a corrugated iron building with interesting bits about the former the gold mining town, the telegraph station and local history bits. It was National Trust so we didn't have to pay the $2 each entrance. We then had lunch sitting in shade opposite near some little ponds of water called the Water Gardens. We then saw the rest of the sites of Pine Creek. We drove up to the lookout over the past goldmine, which is now used as a reservoir and then we drove down to the old railway station, which was set up as a little museum and had an engine and carriage there, so Adrian was in his element.

Adrian enjoying the bottom pool at Edith Falls

He had a long chat to the New Zealand chap who was in charge of the little museum bit there and lots more bits of memorabilia in there. [Interestingly I said to him were they going to restore the steam engine and he said there was no hope as in a local population of 350 there would not be enough volunteers and Darwin was 200 kms away. He did say they hoped to run it on compressed air one day. The Station was the end of the line from Darwin built during the Gold rush era. The line never went further south. When we were there, there was talk of building a new line from Alice Springs to Darwin, which I thought was 'pie in the sky' talk but lo and behold a line was opened in 2004]. Adjacent to that was a park with some mining exhibits - more engines and bits and pieces. It was very hot, we left at 3 o'clock. After about 60 Km we turned off and drove for quite a few kilometres and then the road went off again, and we weren't sure if we were going the right way, but whether we were or not, a huge Goanna went across the road in front of us. We nearly gave up on this road, particularly when it deteriorated a great deal and had signs saying that it was due to flood damage, but luckily we didn't because then we saw signs to the site at Douglas Hot Springs and we were at the minimal fee site that we'd intended going to.
As soon as we arrived, we went down to see what the hot springs were like and this was another interesting experience as there were lots of people sitting in this little river of water with water going hot and cold in different places sometimes very very hot. We found one bit where the water all spurted up just like a Jacuzzi. We actually spent almost two hours there and got chatting in the end to two ladies from Melbourne. When we returned at almost 6.30 we found we had parked in the generator area so we moved down a bit to hopefully an area that will be quieter as far as generators go. Luckily it was and we cooked pork chops outside. We walked around before we went to bed, there was a starfilled sky again

Rosie on the 'steam' engine at Pine Creek

Friday 17^th July 0 Km

Another lovely hot sunny day. We were undecided whether to stay or not, but we did decide to stay in the end and we moved down to a bit shadier position. We had breakfast outside and while we were doing so Judy and Marjorie, the two ladies with the coaster came and spoke to us and a bit later on invited us over to their coaster for coffee. The rest of the morning was spent in the lovely hot pools in the stream which really was a place to make other people quite enviable and the sort of place one would really imagine tropical paradises to be like.

So suddenly it was lunchtime, and apart from flies it was lovely. Lots and lots of kites overhead although we can't quite work out what they are. The afternoon disappeared as well. It was nice to have time to catch up with the scrapbook of cuttings, the photos and other bits and pieces. We set out on a walk which was a bit of a disaster, there was a plan up showing a kilometre walk to a billabong. We don't know whether we did it or not as there certainly weren't any paths. We realised a lot of this area has been altered by the flood damage. We did find a pool of very hot springs - some are meant to be 60°C and these were certainly too hot to touch, but apart from that we just got scratched and didn't really get anywhere on the walk.

Adrian & Rosie in Douglas hot springs

We ended up further along the stream and tried to get to it there but that proved rather difficult too. We did eventually get back to the stream at another place but it was too hot sitting in the hot springs. We then managed to find a place that was deep enough to do a couple of strokes. We did find out that last year the pool was much deeper and that sand sediment was washed down with the floods.
So it was soon time to go back, the afternoon had gone. Another couple in a dormobile had moved in next to us and they came and chatted, they were from Orange in New South Wales and we had a cup of tea with them and then it got dark and time to get supper. We cooked fish for supper outside. During this time, there had been someone who arrived and left his engine running for a while and then had music playing loudly which upset lots of people, someone did go and tell him to stop it and he turned it down marginally. But it wasn't long after that had stopped when in the dark, a group of 10 or 12 young people, late teens, early 20's, came in a minibus and were extremely noisy, and they parked themselves right next to our two ladies, Marjorie and Judy. It wasn't long before they packed up all their outer tent bit and moved their van down to the far end, the generator end, which actually wasn't very noisy tonight, there was only one person with a generator.
The new people proceeded in the darkness to erect tents and prepared a barbecue. Their voices carried far and wide over the peace of this lovely place that we were in. I remained mildly amused, but wondered whether I would if it carried on all night. We sat out for quite a long time, and then had a walk around and in doing so we met a chap who showed us a large prawn that he'd caught in the river, obviously very pleased with and we walked down to the river and paddled up through it. There were a couple of people who were obviously having night time dip in the water and we returned to the van about 9.30. And no, it wasn't a peaceful night, the noise carried on either louder or softer and until about 2.30 we could still hear it . A couple of times I think people went and told them to be quiet, but they'd been drinking and there was a gang of them and didn’t take any notice and so I didn't get to sleep until after then although Adrian had slept a little bit before.

Rosie tries the really hot pool (60°C) at Douglas Hot Springs

Saturday 18^th July. 176 Km

We didn't wake up until almost 8 o’clock and were surprised to find the place buzzing, with lots of activity and the group of young people were there, packing up and clearing up and I think they were oblivious to the upset they'd caused everybody. They'd been given a good telling off by various people and also the camp lady, when she arrived to collect money but there was nothing she could do about the situation then. So we carried on talking to Kathy and Phil a couple in the dormobile next to us. We talked to them for a long time, a very pleasant couple who were hoping to get a bus in the future and do it up. We had breakfast about the time they left and then thought we'd go down into the springs. We walked up the stream quite long way and found a cooler bit where we was just about deep enough to swim and then came back into the hot bit and while there met another couple who had camped at the site nearby that we'd wondered whether to go to and gone to this site for breakfast. A very nice couple from one of the Southern Sydney suburbs, they had four children. We talked to them for a long time. It was 11.30 by the time we returned to the van and had coffee as we cleared up, did a fill up of water and then thought we really needed leave today.
It was almost midday when we left. We made the 32 kilometres back to the surfaced road. The initial bit was very bad as we'd remembered and then we had a water splash to go through and continued till we took the Old Stuart Highway, which was a pleasant little road through pleasant countryside again.

We had initially thought we'd find somewhere to buy food for lunch, but as we made such a late start, that wasn't to be the case, and we eventually pulled off by the side of a little river in what would have seemed to be idyllic surroundings but the flies were something to spoil it and they certainly did. We managed to find enough with a tin of tuna and the bread which was just about okay to have our lunch.
We stopped in the tiny township of Adelaide River and it was exceedingly hot 95.5°F I think - 35°C. We went into a little shop by a petrol station but it didn't have much, we just bought some milk, then got some diesel and some air. We then went down to the War Cemetery which was situated there, beautifully laid out in wonderfully kept gardens which is no mean feat in this hot arid climate.

Platybus on the road back from (& to) Douglas Hot Springs

It was very green and there were lots of plants there and very sobering but we didn't stay too long because of the intense heat. We found another little shop where we got meat and bread and butter and one or two other things to keep us going for a day or two and left there at 3.10. In Bachelor we managed to pick up a leaflet on Litchfield National Park, from the closed tourist information and we also stopped to view a small castle made by an ex Czechoslovakian man. We then continued into Litchfield National Park and we soon stopped at the site of the magnetic termite mounds. We'd been seeing lots of termite mounds and expected these to be the same, but in fact, they were different. They looked like a whole lot of gravestones standing in line, or like the rocks of Carnac.

We turned off to Florence Falls and after looking at the day use car park proceeded to the campsite where we found ourselves a position. We were both so hot we went straight away and had a cold shower which was wonderful. We then went for a walk to the Falls, which were a nice surprise to find. It was a long way down a wooden stairway to the lovely looking falls and delightful swim in the pool, when we got there.

Adelaide River War Cemetery (Ahmad Syahid 2021)

Termite mounds, Litchfield N.P.

Then another delight, as we came back a different way, the Shady Creek walk, which was like an English footpath, following a crystal clear stream and arriving back via the day use car park and back to our position in the campsite, just as the sun was going down.
Adrian got a fire going and we cooked steak and sausages on this. The potatoes took a long time to cook and in the meantime, a young chap called Peter came across, a rather simplistic chap and asked if we had a light, his wasn't working - batteries flat. He stayed talking for about an hour - mostly him, and by then the potatoes were well charred. We sat out until about 10.30 on a beautiful evening under a star filled sky. There were one or two mosquitoes. A very warm night followed, making it difficult to sleep. I heard a dingo howling at some time in the early hours.

The campsite at Litchfield National Park

Litchfield Falls

Sunday 19^th July 40 Km

I awoke early to find a mosquito had bitten me and it had come into my dream! It was surprisingly cloudy at this point although the clouds soon disappeared and already by the time we were having breakfast outside at 8.30, it was incredibly hot. It was 9 o'clock by the time we left. We drove the short distance to Buley Rockhole and spent a lovely time there, plunging into the various different pools amongst lots of little waterfalls. We had our coffee there too, it was very hot and 11 o'clock before we left.

We returned the 3 Km to the main Rd and stopped next at the Tabletop Swamp, a sort of pond area, which had waterlillies on it and we saw a heron and tiny skinks.
Then on to Tolmer Falls, you can't swim at the Falls - there are bats in the gorge, but we went on a walk there for about ¾ hour and further up the stream we were able to immerse ourselves in the water to cool down a little. We returned and then continued to Greenant Creek picnic area for lunch. We had that sitting by a little creek which was as clear as clear, watching the fish in it and some little kingfishers swooping down to eat them. There was a walk there to some more falls but being so incredibly hot and you couldn't swim in the water there, for ecological reasons, we decided to give that one a miss. We got to the Wangi Falls and found it packed out, the campsite had virtually no room, so we went into the day carpark which was pretty crowded, it is Sunday afternoon of course. They were very pretty falls, much like Edith Falls but a higher waterfall and a pool at the bottom with rather more people in it swimming. We joined them and swum across to the waterfall and we had intended going on a walk there, which went for a couple of kilometres around the top, and having got ourselves all dressed up in walking boots etc., we found that the walk was closed. Just a little sign 'caution, keep out, construction work', at the beginning, nothing anywhere else to tell you that the path was closed or a sign telling you about this walk you could do.

Rosie at Buley Rock Holes

So we decided to leave this busy place and at 2.45 we headed off in the intense heat. A bit further on we came to Petherick's Rainforest Reserve where you could camp and it only cost $5 each, so we decided to give it a go. We found a suitable shady spot to camp and then set off for a little walk. We came to what they called a thermal pool, a warmish pool in the rain forest. A couple of little boys were enjoying themselves playing around, there were lots of little fish, and something we'd seen a lot of there - huge spiders in their webs. After a little plunge in the pool, we set off on a trail, quite a lot of climbing involved, alongside a stream and ended up in a little area of cascades and a pool, where we had a refreshing swim before making our way back again.

Adrian at the Wangi Falls

It was till very very hot. We returned about 4.30. We had a fire again tonight and we cooked outside, but we waited until it was dark to cook as we had been doing lately, which perhaps wasn't a good idea there as we were bombarded by mosquitoes and really the meal was an endurance test. The food itself was nice, it was the same steak as we'd had last night and the baked potatoes were excellent tonight but although the mossies had deteriorated a bit in number by the time we ate, there were a myriad of little flying creatures emerged, which landed on the table where we had the light and it really was an endurance test to sit there. The heat had been so great, but because of the mosquitoes, we'd had to cover ourselves up. I'd found some thinnish long trousers and long sleeve top and Adrian resorted eventually to a long sleeved shirt and his pyjama trousers - there was no one around much to notice what we were wearing in the dark so it didn't matter. We heard sounds in the undergrowth but we didn't actually ever find out what was out there although we looked several times to see. We did spend an enjoyable evening out there by the firelight, but wished we didn’t have had all those little creatures. The temperature was still 80°F when we came in at 10 o'clock.

Adrian at the cascades in Pethericks Rainforest

Monday 20^th July 103 Km

A very warm sultry start to the day. There was lots of grey cloud but it felt extremely warm. We didn't wake till almost 8 o'clock having heard a lot of bird song and had a cup of tea and then our breakfast outside. Just after 9 o'clock, we decided to go and have a look at the adjacent rain forest. It was a long way down the track and we were glad that we hadn't walked. We parked near the end and being rather a rough road, we were glad the van had made it okay and we then proceeded to walk in the rain forest, which was even more humid than the feeling outside, but we didn't get too far. This was supposed to be where a World War Two Spitfire was at the end of an hour's walk, but we didn't really want to spend that much time doing it anyway. There was a note on a sign from somebody saying, "walked to the end of the track no spitfire and no cascades", which were also supposed to be there. During the walk, which was rather wet underfoot in places as it followed round a stream, we came across two couples, separately, who'd not met up with each other in the rain forest and neither of them had really got anywhere.
So we then returned ourselves and then drove back down the track and at about 09.40, we were on our way towards Darwin on a road, supposedly gravel but initially surfaced. We then had 40 kilometres of unsurfaced road, and with great glee at 11 o'clock, we joined the tarmacked road. It wasn't far along there before we came to the Territory Wildlife Park, which I'd wanted to visit and this was a very pleasant surprise. It was $12 each to go in (about £5), but was certainly well worth the money. I suppose you could call it a zoo, beautifully laid out and kept up. There was a 'petit train' that would take you around 4 kilometres or so, where the animals were or you could go on a path which was more or less the same route. We started off by seeing kangaroos, very much in their natural setting - the Whipsnade type idea and we saw various other things along the way. There was little area of feral animals, camels, a dingo etc. and we then went to a sort of lagoon area where we saw a great many water birds including a Jabiru.

We got so engrossed with looking at things that we suddenly realised it was lunchtime and the little kiosk wasn't open, it was obviously out of season and the bit that we'd got to was probably only open at weekends - the main kiosk was back at the entrance. So having been through the aquarium area, which was pretty impressive, we caught the little train back to the start and decided to have our lunch there. I had fish and chips and Adrian had a quiche and some veggies and we shared things a bit and we then caught the train back to where we got to and carried on through the aviary, which was very enjoyable. They were redoing this a bit, so some of the birds didn't seem to be where we expected them, but even so a lot of things were made clear in our mind and it was lovely to see some of the things we'd wanted to see although we didn't see a golden finch there, which was a shame as it should have been there. There was a house of reptiles and spiders, which was perhaps the least well done and then a nocturnal house, which we very much enjoyed. There was a bilby in there, a funny looking creature and lots of little marsupial type animals, a frilled lizard and tree frogs, so a very enjoyable time. When we came out of there it was 4.30 and we certainly hadn't expected to spend so long there. Another nice thing was that many of the trees around the area were labelled and with their uses, altogether a very impressive display.
We then had to think what to do and we decided to head a bit further towards Darwin, which we did and there were a couple of campsites about 35 Km (22 miles) outside Darwin and one of these was Howard Springs Park but we thought we'd try the one on the main road which was behind a service station and partly residential called Coolalinga Caravan Park. We thought it would do us for tonight and it did excellently, particularly as the lady got it wrong and we didn't seem to be charged. We put the air conditioning on, which was one of the reasons for wanting to be on a site as it felt extremely humid. There was a swimming pool, so having gathered together the washing and put it in the machine we went for a swim, Adrian first. It was quite large pool and there were several children playing in there and we then had a shower and hairwash. We thought we wouldn’t eat so late, so we did a different thing and had just tea, sitting inside with air conditioning on, with the added advantage that it would save us getting bitten, and also the fact that normally we were so hot when we tried to go to sleep, that we found sleeping difficult. Even so it wasn't that brilliant a night, as it did still feel warm and as we had to have the curtains open a bit to let some air through the netting there was a light shining in right where we were trying to sleep and then a slow train or something went crashing through in the middle of the night.

A jabiru at the Wildlife park

Tuesday 21^st July. 61 Km

We awoke to a lovely sunny morning and a cool temperature. A kangaroo hopped in front of the van at that point and it went into the caravan in front of us - I decided perhaps he was a pet. We had our cup of tea, and breakfasted outside and then had a pleasant swim in the pool. We collected up the washing which wasn't quite dry as the sun was only just getting to it and we were ready to leave at 9.15. We stopped at the entrance and got our money back for the deposit for the key, which we didn't think we paid for anyway! Adrian phoned Landbase and asked the lady to send our post to Darwin and got some rolls and buns.
We headed towards Darwin and tried a caravan site near the airport which was caravans and motorhomes only, knowing that it would be a problem finding somewhere nearer to Darwin - everywhere seems pretty crowded but we were able to get a spot. It was quite expensive at $20 but we then realised it was an 'ensuite'. This meant it had a basic, but private, shower, toilet, wash basin and washing basin and we were given two plugs along with key to get in there. We checked the place out, it was now 10 o'clock. We drove into Darwin and had a busy morning, we very easily found places to park which was nice, first of all, right near the post office where we would hopefully collect some post next week. We found somewhere that was going to develop slides, so we took all of Adrian’s films in. We located the place and got our tickets to Timor. We then went to the tourist information and picked up lots of leaflets and located the library where we spent a pleasurable time. We could have spent ages in there, looking through various atlases with maps of the oceans and the ancestry of animals, but also, we were able to photocopy several pages on Timor as we have no information on that. We also went to a bookshop, where I'd bought for 50 cents (20p), a tiny little book on Herman Melville, and we also bought the Lonely Planet for Queensland. A very successful morning. It was very warm, but a very pleasant, low key sort of place. Darwin was the sort of size of a city that I could cope with and we also bought an ice cream at a place that had lots of flavoured ice creams.

Wednesday 22^nd July 24 Km

We were awake early. There were one or two aeroplanes taking off and there were one or two people who obviously lived there and left for work before 6 o’clock. I got up then and made a cup of tea and we slowly got ourselves organised and packed. We had breakfast outside, then had a swim, as almost the last thing, we had really enjoyed the pool with the luxury plants around it and nobody else there. We had showers in our personal shower block and left just after 10 o'clock and proceeded to the adjacent campsite, which actually seems to be all the same site, but was run separately.
There Adrian booked us in for Saturday and Sunday nights when we come back from Timor but he had to leave a deposit. We very soon stopped at Leanyer Recreational Park, which had a nice little pond, and there was a bit of sand on the outside for paddling and swimming from. We made that our coffee stop with the nice buns which I’d bought yesterday. We took the road down to Buffalo Creek, which was a little river coming out to the sea on the north, but a notice said there were saltwater crocodiles there and it was very muddy and mucky and was a place for fishing or fishing! there were mangroves there.

We took the road up to Lee Point which was a beautiful looking beach with turquoise sea. It was still quite muddy but we walked out across the beach and there were lots of lots of blue spidery crabs. We did have a paddle in the sea but a notice said there were box jellyfish there - all those things to make the pleasant trip not so pleasant. We came back and had our lunch sitting out in the shade and had time to collect ourselves a bit and get things left clean and tidy.
We then drove down to the airport arriving quite early at 1.40 for our 4 o'clock flight. In fact, our flight didn't leave until 5.00, so we had quite a lot of sitting around at the airport, I was reading the little book on Herman Melville. On the flight we had very wide seats and we were served quite a pleasant little meal. We arrived at Kupang after 1½ hours and it was very warm when we stepped off the plane, it had been very cool on the plane. There was great confusion and people everywhere with lots of people in yellow T shirts who seemed to be porters. One had our name so we went with this chap, who got our bags which were then thoroughly looked through for drugs it would seem and we were bundled into a taxi. The chap asked for some money and Adrian said he hadn't got any change and we were still trying to work out the denominations there anyway. It seemed it was 20,000 of whatever these things are [Indonesian Rupiah] to a pound, so it was a bit hard to work out. When we arrived at the Kristal Hotel after a ‘hairy’ taxi ride, it was again confusion, as our taxi was supposed to be paid for us to get to the hotel but it seemed we'd gone in a taxi that wasn't paid for.
Everyone was being very friendly, but with our normal reticence, we were a little anxious about being pressured into doing things we didn't want to. The hotel looked very posh, there were beautiful pools and its location and the sun was just setting over the sea. We were right on the beach although the beach itself wasn't very pleasant. I felt pretty exhausted, and tried to suss the place out a bit. We turned on the television and watched the news of the terrible floods in Papua New Guinea and also in China and in New South Wales. Luckily we had an air conditioned room. We went down and had a swim in the beautiful pool down below us. It said not to take your towels down there, so we asked at the reception and we're told there would be someone to give us towels, which there wasn't. We swum around for a while in the dark and then there were no towels forthcoming. We searched around everywhere after having our swim. A chap had come and spoken to us, we thought that he was bringing the towels but he was perhaps just another visitor. He said his mother was 103 and still going strong. He was a local person. Eventually Adrian went in and somebody came and produced two towels so we wrapped them round us and went up to our room.

Buffalo Creek, Darwin, NT, Australia (streetview 2021)

Thursday 23^rd July

I slept really well in this lovely large bed, but we were awake at what would appear to be about 4.20 am or maybe 5.20 and then we came to later on which was 6.00 or 7.00 am, I was utterly confused about the time. We went down to breakfast which was a sort of buffet but there were people who helped you to tea and coffee and all manner of different strange looking rice and oriental dishes. There was also melon, a sort of bacon, scrambled egg and some sweetish bread. We had some toast which didn't really taste quite right, the spread on it and the jam stuff was very artificial tasting. But we had a lovely view looking out over the sea, slightly cloudy and slightly windy, but the clouds cleared a bit later. We were a bit of a loss what to do because we couldn't see anybody around, the ones that were rushing to get us on tours and things yesterday.
After a while of sitting in the lobby and looking out at the chaotic traffic going by and people standing in the doorways on the vehicles and luggage everywhere, a chap called Yudi came and talked to us. He said he was from Java and that he was Christian and his wife's family were Muslim and they had a little baby. He was working here. He eventually told us, he was the captain of the coffee shop, and after a chat to him and the problems of the country, he said that he would take us around. I found him very quiet and hard to hear, but he spoke pretty good English. So for better or worse, we said that we'd meet him downstairs to go on a tour.

Once we were dry and changed, we went downstairs intending to go into the bar for a drink. We were directed or cajoled into the restaurant, where there was the sound of music which was a chap playing a lovely stringed instrument [a sasando]. We just said we'd have a drink - a huge beer each. We were then cajoled into having some food, we each had some prawns which they called shrimps, mine in butter and Adrian's in so called Worcester sauce which he said was soy sauce. It was a very smart looking restaurant with tablecloths etc., but practically empty. There were about 8 waiters standing around to serve and one group of people and later two gentleman and that was all apart from us. We enjoyed the atmosphere and the luxury of what seemed to be costing us very little[The cost of a 5-star room in 2026 is still only £24 a night]. We came back up to our room at a time that we thought was about 10 o'clock, but were not quite sure, and our confusion with the time continued into the next day.

1998-07-23 The swimming pool at the Kristal Hotel Kupang (Trip Advisor 2021)

This all turned out pretty well, we waited quite a while for him and during that time I was reading an Indonesian newspaper in English a very much a westernised newspaper.
Yudi duly arrived in a little car with sideways seats in the back, which I sat in initially and then we swapped over later. He took us down into the town of Kupang which looked very interesting, full of sights reminiscent of Bangkok with people pushing carts. An absolute hubub with people living on their horns and hanging out of vehicles. We stopped in Kupang and went into Teddy's bar, Teddy himself was there and Adrian had a large beer and I had a soft drink and this was pretty nice looking out over the sea.

Adrian on the balcony at the Kristal Hotel

He then drove us around for a bit and we saw some interesting sights and sounds of ramshackle shops and people selling things on the pavement. All sorts of third world images met our eyes.
He then said he'd take us to a beach and drove us back past the hotel for some kilometres to the pretty idyllic looking Lasiana beach, making us think very much of Ua Pou with the coconut palms right down to the sea and a nice sandy beach and then looking across to the mountains beyond. Adrian and I had a swim there which was very pleasurable.

Yudi & Adrian at Teddy's Bar, Kupang

Just behind us was some ramshackled buildings with an oldish couple who were selling fresh coconuts that they'd got from the palms and expertly, he chopped them off and we drank some coconut milk, and then chopped them in half and we actually ate the soft flesh, which was very pleasant to taste.

Rosie & Adrian on Lasiana Beach near Kupang after a swim

He said he was 71 and it appeared it was him that climbed the trees to get the coconuts. Yudi told us, there were lots and lots of different languages and these people were speaking the local language that only the older people would speak just from Kupang and not Indonesia. It appeared that there are lots and lots of different languages in Indonesia, but presumably these are all dying out. We also had a lot of discussion with him about the economics of the country and about life and the world in general. He seemed a pretty astute sort of fellow and we also learnt that the wages working at the Kristal hotel were 100,000 rupiahs a month, which is £5 a month! The other thing that had been noticeable on our trip was the difference between the poverty of the ordinary people and the extravagance of the government and official buildings. And Yudi also said that inflation was absolutely soaring and things were costing up to five times as much for such things as baby food as they were last time you bought them.
After returning to the hotel room, we almost immediately went down had a swim in the pool, deserted of people and we were feeling pretty lazy by now. However during the afternoon we decided to go back into Kupang and thought we'd get a taxi but there didn’t seem to be any around and we spoke to some young chaps downstairs and they didn't seem to understand and just repeated what we said. So we decided to walk in which was a very interesting experience.

The 'old lady' cutting the coconuts

Yudi & Rosie eating the coconuts

We also had a roasted corn each, which was fresh and the old lady prepared this and the old gent took one or two pictures and bits of video for us.

Rosie & Adrian eating the sweetcorn

We saw how third-worldish this area is, mixed in with some quite nice dwellings were real shanty towns. We walked through a largeish market area which we came across by chance. A lot of it was closed up for the afternoon.

Goats & men and Timorese dwelling near our hotel, on our walk into Kupang

There were people everywhere just selling a few bits and bobs, some of them sort of sleeping on the job. The thing we noticed that everyone seemed very happy, they all called out ‘hello Mr’, ‘hello Mrs.’ and giggled. But nobody hassled us in any way and in fact, they were very helpful. We ended up at the central square, not a particularly pretty place, which was where all the little bemos were - the little minibuses that act as buses. We braved ourselves and had a ride back on one of these after finding out which was the right one to take us back to the hotel. They drive pretty hairily with music on absolutely full blast, and the conductor hangs out of the doorway. So quite an experience and we arrived back feeling pretty hot, so another swim followed and then we went downstairs and had a cup of tea sitting in the foyer and reading the newspapers - the Jakarta paper in English is very interesting.
Then along came Yudi and said he'd got a taxi for the next day to take us into the mountains. It seemed a lot of money, but only comparatively. After chatting to him, we walked out passed the little shacks next door to us. We took one or two photos - people don't seem to mind being photographed at all, they usually smile and wave and then we walked out onto the beach where lots and lots of football games were going on, a very happy and noisy atmosphere.

Children playing on our walk into Kupang

The market, Kupang

The sun was just setting, it was very beautiful with very pastel colours and the tide was out quite away and we could see that the beach was littered with coral. Lots of children came running up saying ‘hello Mrs., hello Mr’. and smiling and we took lots of photographs and then walked back round to the front of the hotel.

Young Timorese girl

Timorese children playing on the beach

We had showers and then we went down to the restaurant, where we were the only people there until later on when a group of seven came. I had calamari with rice and Adrian had seafood which also came with rice and we had a large beer each, Adrian had a second one. Then after a while we had a banana split which was just a banana, cut in half with Neapolitan ice cream in the centre, so not at all exciting. We felt very hot and weary, and the waiter tried to talk and get me to say some Indonesian words which I immediately forgot afterwards. We then came up to the room about 9 o'clock.

Sunset on the beach by our hotel

Friday 24^th July

We were disturbed in the night again by the people in the next room, at 1.30 and at 4.30, talking and cackling loudly. We were still up early and went down to have our breakfast at 7.00 am - about as exciting as other times, and then got ourselves organised to leave at 8 o'clock with Yudi. We went down into the foyer and sure enough he was there, and soon after a taxi arrived and driver was called Argol.
We spent a long day with them arriving back after 5 o'clock in the evening. We drove up into the mountains and to Soe which was a long way. Twice there were bridges which had been washed away in last year's floods and hadn't been rebuilt, they were going to be rebuilt slowly. So one had to go on a very rough bit of road and across the old bridge in both cases. We also saw a lot of rice being grown and we were very aware of people carrying stuff, often on their head or on a yoke with buckets on either end, particularly water. We saw them carrying their loads along the road and everywhere looked more green and lush than we'd expected it to. We must mention the children in their school uniform all looking very smart. Yudi told us the family pays for the uniform, the junior school children wear a white short sleeved shirt and cherry red shorts or skirt and the old children wear a white shirt with a bluey grey long trousers for the boys, and the girls a skirt usually, with white socks

We stopped at somewhere that seemed to be called Camplong, where there were stalls, one of which we were told sold betel nuts. The place was a sort of waterhole built by the Dutch in the past, and people were doing their washing there and playing in the water.

Some typical houses in the hills

We saw a Komodo dragon and a Timorese Python and a crocodile (all in cages) and there was also a Japanese cave there [built by the Japanese in WW 2 to hide away from the locals].

Children playing in the 'Waterhole' at Camplong

Betel nuts on a stall in Camplong

We carried on up into the hills stopping at a place, which translated meant ‘water milk’, but I didn't know what it was called in Indonesian. It had become cloudy by now with the hills beautifully spread out around us. We continued to Soe and pulled into a little place where we had lunch, although it was only about 11.30 but I was certainly ready for some coffee by then, Adrian had some tea, and we had a portion of pork & chips, between the two of us, which was very nice. The other two had an Indonesian rice meal, they certainly live on rice [The lads seemed to expect us to pay for their meal, which hardly mattered as the whole lot came to £1.50!]. We were glad we had that as we didn't eat anything else today. It was a very busy town with people bustling around and there were a lot of school children A chap came and tried to sell us some Indonesian cloth and we were supposed to go out to his house later, but when we came back, we couldn't find him, so we didn't do that.
We then went on to the Oehala Falls, which were about 10 kilometres out from Soe. and we seemed to go down and down through very poor areas and we saw lots of beehive shaped little thatched houses, and still everybody that we met, waved or smiled. The Oehala Falls were very picturesque, and we climbed down lots and lots of steps and the Falls just went on and on. It was obviously a picnic place on a Sunday.

Adrian looking at a Timorese python

Adrian & Rosie in the 'Japanese' cave

There was a huge tall bamboo there and lots of tall trees, it reminded us of Paronella Park [in Queensland in 1993] but it just looked like something would have been done in the past and left since then. While we were there, we were aware of fine drizzle, and it then came on to rain and it rained for the rest of the time that we were up in the mountains.

At the Oehala Falls near Soe

We spent a while there and then we climbed back up the steps and a little goat came to visit us and then more goats, some nice looking cows and lots of animals just running around, along with people and chickens everywhere.
We went back to Soe and drove around it, hoping to stop and look at some stalls, but in the rain, it didn't look so attractive and there was no-one much around, so we didn't stop and began the long trail home. Everyone got dozy and all slept at various times and then I called out that I wanted to photograph one of the beehive houses and we soon stopped. It wasn't an ideal one to photograph from the road so Yudi said, "oh, we'll go on in". It was sunny by now as we'd come down the mountains a bit and so we went in, Yudi said they were very poor people. There were three adults, a boy of about 10 and a baby who was 5 months, being held by a woman whose teeth were either missing or stained red with the beetle nuts. I asked them if we could photograph the two little beehive houses there.

The palms and trees at Oehala Falls

We then pulled in near Lasiana into a shop which was actually the place that they made these musical instruments that we'd heard on the first evening called a Sasando and there was the young chap who had played it. You couldn’t really call it a shop, there were a few local articles lying around and we ended up buying a few things very cheaply, but we had to equate it against the weight of carrying them home.

A typical Timorese Bus with people 'hanging on'

We then continued back and arrived at the hotel sometime after 5 o’clock and went into the restaurant and had a cup of tea and coffee with Yudi, who said were we going to eat and anything, would we like a snack. A snack there wasn't a packet of crisps or bar chocolate, it was a fried banana which came sprinkled with cheese, so I was ready for that, having not eaten anything since our early lunch. The sky was very lovely looking out from our table, it wasn't a sunset as such because it was quite cloudy and dramatic looking, but very beautiful from where we were sitting. Later we came down for a meal of chicken & beef satay, Indonesian salad and fried rice , suggested by Yudi. We then went back up to our room and tried to sort out the finances, as we were leaving the next day.

We then continued back the long journey to Kupang much further than I'd remembered [It was over 100Kms between Kupang and Soe and very slow]. We stopped once, by one of the large rivers, there wasn't much water in it now but obviously in the wet season it would be very full.
Before we reached Kupang the driver suddenly pulled into the side and I photographed some more children and the scenery.

Timorese people outside their 'beehive houses'

Sasando player near Lasiana

Saturday 25^th July 7 Km

A pretty good night only disturbed at about 5.30 am by the noisy women next door, they'd been very noisy last night when we'd come in. It was a clear blue sky, and we went down to breakfast, and Yudi was serving. We met an Australian woman that he also knew, she came from Darwin but taught in Palmerston, New Zealand. She taught Indonesian so she'd been studying for a month over there and just been to Bali for a week to meet up with her husband. We spent a long time chatting to her, she was going back on our flight. She said that Timor was a better bet than Bali which was very commercialised, and one got pestered by people all the time. We had a very interesting conversation with her. We exchanged addresses with Yudi, gave him some money, and then went to settle the bill. After one false alarm, when they gave us the wrong bill which was a bit staggering, we paid the bill and we were ready to leave at 10 o'clock. We'd looked at the one or two gifts they had for sale in the front of the hotel knowing that they cost far more than other places, but still ridiculously cheap, but all we bought were 4 postcards.
We travelled to the airport on the bus from the hotel with Vonney the Australian woman that we'd met who came to be quite friend in the next few hours. We arrived at the airport and she told us what chaos it would be, but she'd always travelled in school holiday times before and this time it wasn't a mad rush and they didn't go through our stuff too much. All seemed to be going well, we hung around for a long time. They showed us through eventually to the waiting room having done all the formalities and having sat there where there was just rows of seats and nothing to do, we went back out and I said I'd like a drink and having just bought one, some people arrived with little parcels of food for us each, and Vonney said that was bad news, we were going be delayed.
We'd heard rumours that we were going to be delayed two hours and apparently this is just so normal that no one bothers about it. We ate the food which wasn't that palatable and chatted on and on, but eventually we did leave only about two hours late. [While we were sitting there Vonney told us that when Garuda Airlines – considered to be one of the airlines with the worst safety records – had finished with their planes they sold them on to Merpati. She said she was always pleased when a flight landed!]. The plane arrived and we waited again before we went out there. It was very windy outside and we were disconcerted to see something which we thought was perhaps rain, blowing across but it didn't seem to be raining. As we walked to the aeroplane we realised it was smoke from a fire adjacent to the runway and fire engines were there. But no one said a word, we got onto the plane and found we had the first class seats again, which were large. We taxied through this smoke and waited at the end of the runway for a while, then zoomed off through the smoke and up into the air. Both of us had never been more glad to be airborne, no one said anything and no one showed any sign of concern.
We had a very undramatic flight back, very smooth. We were served another snack meal, we put the time an hour and a half on, on our watches and then arrived some time after 5 'clock Darwin time after a 1½ hour flight. We went through the formalities, we'd declared our stuff as we'd got a carved cow's horn but everything was okay. We returned to the bus no problem at all, and there it was waiting just outside in the car park. We drove along to the KOA Caravan Site and then immediately went to nearby Coles and stocked up with some food, it was very warm now. We got back to our spot in the caravan site as it was just about dark. We set about unpacking all the shopping and all the bits and pieces from our bags and then Adrian set up with the electricity, it all made us feel pretty weary. We opened a bottle of wine to celebrate being back in Australia having done our visa renewal for not that much more money than the renewal of the visa would cost if we'd stayed here and had three days of interest in Timor and apart from my ears still feeling deaf, all was okay. We cooked a pizza for supper.

We then found ourselves down by the wharf, by the water, not a very pretty place but it was shady, it was quite green there with lots of trees and we were looking out to sea. Darwin is one of those places with land and sea in all directions and we had our lunch there and looked through one or two of the leaflets. We set off to collect the slides, but on the way, we called in at the archive building, which we'd seen on the way, and when we got there found it was a place that you could go in for the day paying $10. We didn’t need that, but we asked a little hobbly old lady about the Family Tree Magazine but she didn't seem to know anything about it, but then she said, I’ve got this one and handed me April's edition! and there delight of delights was my article. She said would you like it photocopied, so we were really pleased about that - it cost 30 cents! We then went and collected all the slides and had a walk up and down the mall, in this very pleasant city. We bought a few medical things such as witch doctor, which we hadn't found anywhere else, insect creams of various sorts, and some contact lens solution, the larger size of which was cheaper in one store than a smaller size in another store - that does make sense! We returned to the van about 4.15 and drove around a bit and found ourselves at Cullen Beach, which is by a newly developing Marina. We had a look at the beach and realised it was a long time since we'd seen the sea, Broome we thought, and so we couldn't resist having a swim in the warm waves, which was really nice. We went back to the site we'd booked into this morning – Malak Caravan Site, getting a bit lost on the way, but it was pleasantly warm. We had chicken for supper, we had bought a cooked chicken, and used the microwave for that and potatoes and sprouts and sat outside. We then went for a swim in the pool and a shower and then got ourselves organised for going to Timor tomorrow.

[I should mention here the finances of going to West Timor. The reason for going was not just for a 'holiday' and see somewhere very different from Australia, but because our visas for Australia were for 6 months, either then renewable or returnable immediately to Australia as long as you have left. To renew our visas was going to be a lot of trouble and would have cost £65 each (for nothing!). The cost of our trip, for hotel and flights etc. was about £350. All the evening meals and drinks in the hotel for 3 days came to about £11! We paid this and all our other expenses, (including Yudi’s trip to Soe), taxis and other food, out of the £40 in Indonesian that we took with us – and we could not spend it all!]