Touring Knights

We arrived in Cloncurry on the 27th of July Cloncurry is a lovely little neat country town, with a pretty important role in outback Queensland’s history. For me this is a name that echoed from my childhood, as my mums (well our whole family really) favourite TV series was a town like Alice, and in the series she has to fly into Cloncurry. We set Ruby up at the Caravan park and went out for lunch and supplies. One of the things i loved in the Main Street was they had speakers playing music all down the street. The next day we got up to explore the town. Sadly on our way through to Cloncurry we passed the Mary Kathleen mining site and it was a fair drive to go back to see, so we gave this a miss and left it for “next time” we are in the area. We went to the tourist information /museum park in town  Here we wandered around learning about the local history, how Burke and Wills had passed through this area.  Outside the indoor museum in the Mary Kathleen sculpture park they had lot...

Waking up the day we were leaving Daly waters it really felt like the holiday was really almost over.  As you can see the sunshine was gone , we were both really quiet , lost in our own thoughts. Of course returning home to family , the house and of course our Nellie boy is exciting , for me returning to my atelier (craft room) is always a welcome thought. But then to leave days were every day is  a surprise, seeing something new and an adventure felt a bit sad. As we traveled along we came across quite a few of these very wide loads , where we had to get completely off the road. The truck drivers were always very courteous thanking us for pulling over . I do admire the skill it would take driving something like this, the sheer weight, and managing the load on what can be very rough roads at times. We pulled up for the night at Barkley Homestead station, This is really a great spot for an overnight stop , all drive through spots set up for the traveller. We got in late so didn...

After leaving Pine Creek we continued further south we passed through the town of Larrimah We actually passed through Larrimah back in 2019 and stopped for “coffee and cake” , has to go down in history as the worst coffee i ve ever had. Anyway the reason we stopped and took photos here is because Gadget had watched the Netflix series that centres around  The murder of a local man, where any of the 11 eccentric locals had a good motive for murdering him. But apparently the owner of the cafe we stopped at is the prime suspect…. Anyway took some pictures and drove on. Daly Waters hotel Again this is a place we have been before ,  but loved it so much it was a near brainer to return. Daly water is one of those iconic little townships that Australia produces.  The village is filled with eccentric buildings with parts of helicopters , cars and other paraphernalia. The pub even has its own traffic lights. The pub is also filled with memorabilia and is just a fun place to sit rel...

We left Kakadu on the 22nd of July , me with a very sad heart, not sure what it is about Kakadu but i just really love being there. Anyway we commenced our southward journey, the first stop Pine creek. Pine creek is coated about 90kms north of Katherine This was our third visit to pine creek, twice on this trip. Both times we stayed at the lazy Lizard caravan park,  which is really quite nice,  located next to the tavern of the same name. We had a little wander around , visited the museum, but generally just caught up on blogging correspondence ect. What we didn't get to see last time was “the shed” The shed is a private collection of cars , motor bikes and assorted memorabilia    For a gold coin donation you can wander around looking at this collection . The donation goes to the Melanoma foundation. The bikes didn't really stir a lot of memories for me but the cars certainly did. Predominately Holden vehicles and my growing up with a dad , grandad and uncle with a p...

On our last full day in Kakadu we did a tour with  Never Never safari tours  Jody picked us up at the Cooinda bus stop, in her silver 4WD  In a flanno shirt, shorts , crocs and socks, her “winter uniform” Jody was just so high spirited and bubbly, i knew we were in for a fun day. The road out to Jim Jim falls is 50kms roughly of very corrugated road, which Jody navigated really well, she was very knowledgeable about the road, where the worst parts  We met Jody’s dad Chiso and his 4WD full of passengers at the Garnamarr    Campground(above), on board with Chiso was Peter Keepence a well known photographer in the area. Peter was on the trip to take photos for a promotional campaign for Chiso and Jody’s business.  We parked at the Jim Jim falls car park and hiked the last 1km into the falls. Initially the track was quite easy to walk, but it became progressively harder as we went along. For the last few hundred metres we had to do quite a bit of rock hopp...

I think the thing i liked most about Kakadu this time was the animals. Specially around the yellow river “cooinda” area. We did the sunset river cruise and whilst everyone else was  checking out the crocs , i was looking more at the birds and landscape. Below is a  White belied sea eagle  These birds breed and hunt near water, with fish making up to 50% of its diet. The bird is revered by indigenous people and is the subject of many dream time stories. They are monogamous and will remain with their mate until death. The bird below is a  Nanken night heron These birds are predominately nocturnal, and are happy to live in a variety of environments. We seen at least six of these birds, some juvenile. The juveniles are much different in appearance with a more streaky looking coat.  The bird below is probably the most famous /popular bird in Kakadu. So popular that there is a township named after it  The bird is a  Black Necked stork, better known as a Jabi...

Yesterday we returned to Kakadu We first visited here in 2022, when we flew up for a short vacation and did a five day guided bus tour to Kakadu It was exciting to be back and in our own accomodation and vehicle. After setting up Ruby we had a quick wander around Cooinda (yellow water) lodge /campground. Then i headed off for a cultural awareness tour. We travelled out to the lands of traditional owners where we were welcomed by Mandy. Mandy took us to the wetlands explaining as we walked what some of the plants were used for . The maleluca  tree leaves are good for flavouring cooking/ Then we were taken to the edge of the creek where we received a traditional welcome to country  With a section of paper bark used to collect water and then to pour over our heads,  Mandy welcomed us in her traditional language. She then took us deeper into the wetlands and collected some lotus roots. When the flowers have finished, they close up and bend back down into the water. Mandy peel...