NT: Border, Old Victoria River Crossing to Kakadu - June 3rd...

See photo - It says it all, boarder crossing.

Yahoo!!!... we did it, we made it out of WA and still as excited as when we left 6 weeks ago. We had covered 6524 kms in WA, caught 6 tiddlers but nothing to eat!. Now the kids are much better at longer trips and  we now push the 440 km stretches with a couple stops along the way. Interestingly the kids are not fussed about watching DVD's, they just love asking questions when they spy things along the way!.

Our stop at Victoria Crossing found us relaxing on the old road bridge fishing, while the boys had Drag races on their bikes for the 3 hours! Unfortunately we did not catch anything, except Chris did a great job losing his rig 5 times, including an unbelievable retrieval when the snag let go and the sinker shot past Chris and I between the railings across and over the other side of the 4 lane bridge!



See photo - Boys wanted a photo in Katherine on the old digger.

Our arrival in Kakadu was earlier than expected, we passed thru Katherine with a quick stop to look at the markets and some old Digging Machines (request from the boys), we took some photos and pressed on to Pine Creek and the turnoff to Kakadu. Pine Creek was an old mining town and had a plethora of vintage steam driven mining and haulage equipment on display, we got some photos of the boys on some old trains and we were off! We arrived at the Entry point and stopped to pay for our entry tickets only to find Aiden fast asleep, so we bribed Riley with a Lollipop and pushed on thru to Cooinia and the Gagudju Lodge Kakadu resort and Caravan Park.

As we entered the Kakadu National Park we found ourselves waiting for the scenery to change, it felt like we where in Kalamunda back home. We arrived at the Gagudju Lodge Kakadu Resort only to find the Jim Jim Falls and many other areas were closed due to excessive Croc activity . We checked in (at cost of $55 per night ....ouch), then headed straight to the pool. It was a beautiful resort style pool the best yet, but we guess that is what you should get at that price per night.

See photo - Riley the explorer, pointing to rock art.

The next day we took a drive out to ..... Aiden was truly not in the mood for a bush walk, but we managed to get his attention from time to time and break the winging moments with questions. However Aiden had been odd the last day or so, so we think he was still recovering from (maybe lack of sleep!) on the other hand Riley, the explorer loved it and we took the lead to all the sites and Aboriginal paintings. We continued along and popped into another couple of spots on the way home to find nothing of  any real interest until we came to the Aboriginal Culture Centre, it was an amazing Cultural Centre and well worth the time.

So what to do now, we thought. We had planned on spending another 3 nights across at Aroura Kakadu, but most things were closed due to the floods and increased number in crocs, they are planning on opening up the areas in mid June after they catch and relocate the feisty eaters, so maybe next time..........

See photo - Hanging out with Tanya, Tony and boys

Our next day we decided to have laze around the pool and have a lamb roast for dinner. By this stage we had a chance to meet our latest neighbours from Rockhampton Tracey & Tony with their two boys Charlie and Matthew who are also on there away around this amazing country of ours. It was .great to spend some relaxing time with them. We hope to meet up with them as they come up the east coast as we are travelling in opposite directions! Their blog address is www.gillfamilyozodyssey.blogspot.com/ 

See photo - Keeping a close eye on the croc.

By the end of our stay in Kakadu we decided we had to do a tour that would really give us something to write home about (I think we where spoilt by the beauty of Karijini), we did the Yellow Water Tour on the Alligator River (by the way there are no Alligators the bloke who discovered the place made a mistake with what he saw!) It was lovely, however Aiden was very restless and took turns at annoying us, thank goodness we took a bag of snacks to stuff his face with. As it was an afternoon trip we got to see a beautiful sunset, and a big 3 mt croc swimming in front of us and even a Jabaroo fishing in the reeds. We also enjoyed the delights seeing birds like the King Fisher, Data (looks a little like a Shag, but is rare and shy in these waters), Egrets, Rainbow Bee Eater and Whistling Ducks. See our video to enjoy the sunset as we did.

Next morning we decided to get an early start and head off to the big smoke DARWIN......... stay tuned!