On the road again

On Thursday we left Darwin, thanks to the stellar efforts of Mitchell's Paint and Panel and the RACQ back in Brisbane.   We found ourselves on an interestingly named street in the city. Photo op!

We are heading south to rejoin our route at Katherine. Once again we have internet. We are off to the Bungles (WA) in a few days, so will write when we return to Kununurra in WA.

Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge was spectacular.

We spent all of Friday paddling up the first gorge, swimming along the way and spotting "freshies", the non-man eating crocodiles that live in the top end. They set traps for esturine crocs (6 caught in the gorge in the last ten years).

We had a brilliant day/ The "ekta-chrome 1950's" colours achieved accidentally with a rouge camera setting. The red canoe was bent back into shape by Tony's canoe repair (Toyota jack and some blokes standing on various bits).  She lost her lines under the one tonne trailer at 70kmh, but she floats!

Just hanging around.

On a walk on the 'scarp behind the campground.

Two on the many bats that share the riverside.

Glamping with the kids in the Nitmiluk camp ground pool

The obligatory roo shot!

The surviving gear. We are not convinced that the roof rack will survive the rigors of the Gibb River Road ahead, but we will have a red-hot go.Solar panels and all the beer and wine survived the roll over. The tent has some bent bits, and a small tear - but remarkably we are still travelling.

Steak and chips on the barbie, with Tony's new beard.

Laura's Darwin Blog

In World War 2 Darwin was bombed by 93 planes. This was from a ship that sunk in Darwin.

We saw a cool outdoor movie for kids at Mindil Park.

 The jumping crocodiles were the best thing we have done!!!!!!!

The crocodiles were amazing!

Max with a sand croc on Mindil beach.

Max.

We went to the Fish feeding in Darwin.We had thousands of fish swimming around our feet.

Videos

Janelle sent us some videos of the recovery! We are closing a side door on the trailer which hold two water/fuel jerry cans in place on a side shelf.

Savannah Disaster

The "Incident"

We were nearing the end of the Savannah Way when the "incident" occurred.  Pictures tell a thousand words

But we got a lot of help to sort out the problem from the next two cars that went past. First we had to pull out the canoe and kayak - here we are removing the rather flattened red canoe.

Then we needed to get the trailer the right way up.  We succeeded and our car managed to tow the trailer the rest of the way to the nearest town - Borroloola (google it!).  The territory police turned up at this point and made sure we hadn't been drinking (at 11 am!) and OK'd our travel to the nearest town.

Here is a photo showing the damage to the trailer - squashed kayak rack, mangled stonegard (on top) and we did not know what other damage!  All the water poured out of the water tank and the cover was damaged.  No electrics, lost all the batteries which were leaking battery acid and scattered everywhere.

Is this the end of the trip?  Will we all be back at work/school next week?  Is Julia ever going to hear the end of this?

Borroloola is a big  town (not) with super flashy hotels (see below).  Most of the hotel consisted of donga's with a shed over the top.  It had a great mechanic with a magic store containing everything - TJ's.  They were very nice and very helpful to us.

We got the flashy part of the hotel which consisted of rooms in a house with a communal kitchen.  Fortunately it wasn't busy because only one young pilot was using the kitchen and we were the only people in the house.  Below is the sitting room complete with typical tropical louver windows.  They guy running it seemed a little overwhelmed and addicted to the TV and Julia even started folding washing for him.

We spent two days in Borroloola waiting for the insurance company to work out what to do next.  Most of it was spent worrying and on the phone.  The kids loved it though - there were TV's everywhere!!  Laura ate her first green chicken curry and loved it!  Fortunately we took out RACQ premium membership (Thanks Andrew White for suggesting it) and they will pay for upto 12 days accommodation.  They also organised it all.  Well worth the extra money if you are ever planning a big trip!

In the end, after we fixed the electrics on the trailer,  we decided we could drive the car and trailer into Darwin, with an overnight stay in Katherine.

We drove to Katherine -and stopped on the way to the Daly Waters Pub. Which has a certain charm!

Finally we made it to Darwin and saw the trailer guy recommended by the insurance company.  Just brilliant - we agreed to do running repairs, rather than a complete fix and repair it back in Brisbane.  He took off the kayak rack and we could get into the trailer.  Inside, because of Tony's jigsaw packing, not a thing was broken - nothing, not the solar panels and not even the six-pack of beer which was loose in the trailer.  Not even the bottle of wine in the toolbox!!  The trailer repair guy got the six-pack and was very happy!

While we were at the trailer repair shop a panel beater stopped by for a chat and quoted to fix the car!

The trailer needed to go to a car electrical company for final repairs and that was the end of the organisation.  RACQ were happy with what we had arranged and repairs could start on the next day!  Unfortunately, due to everyone being booked out it seems things will not be fixed for five days but it all looks like it is fixable and the trip can continue!

The kayak is fine and the canoe has been NT fixed by Tony with the car jack.  We can travel with them on the top of the car and the desert kayaking will continue! 

We celebrated at the Mindil Markets which were full of people.

This is the sunset over Mindil beach.

Max particularly loved the fire eater performance which was magnificent.

We will catch up with Claire Taylor and Tom and Lorna Pearse while we are here and possibly visit Litchfield over the weekend.  All in all not as much of a disaster as we first though!

The Savannah Way

It's been a while since our last post. We spent the next few days exploring Lawn Hill Gorge, and then decided to change our route and head north to the Savannah Way, an really interesting (it was!) sounding outback route to the north of us. Lots of billabongs and creek crossings. Spectacular! The photos are at the end of this post.

I'll add another link to our map as we have added a few "tracks" (google's android "My Tracks" app!) You can zoom in to see where we were: Our google map

Max and I heading up the ridge beside middle gorge. This photo is to let grandparents know we are taking good care that our kids can cope with risk!

Some of the millions of termite mounds we have seen.

The beginning of Upper Gorge

Paddling up Upper Gorge

At the head of the Gorges

Laura behind a set of falls. 

Max and Julia

The bird life was phenomenal. This is a bower bird,

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and his bower. He collects colours (white in this case) to let potential girlfriends know he awesome.

Our first creek crossing, about ten minutes after we left the safety of big roads.

Driving across cattle stations.

Laura on gate duty.

The road passed many fantastic billabongs.

Every half an hour or so we would pass other travelers. We camped beside the road with some boaties from "Rocky", who had "done" an axle on their trailer. They politely warned us not camp too close as they were running generators all night to recharge their batteries. They were connecting them up in series to do a bit of welding (as you do!).  They  had done on side, and were preparing do the other. We asked them if they wanted us to send help. "Nah, she'll be right!"

We are about 100km off the coast, and the salties come along way inland. As there is no monitoring of these rivers we very conservative.

Yet another photo of an awesome river crossing.