Mary River Roadhouse Pine Creek

... succumbed.

Spent some more time at Copperfield Dam swimming and back at the Pine Creek hotel as well as Mayse’s having scones whilst here. I have been able to catch up on phone calls and blog and relax watching an AFL game on the T.V. We have decided to stop in at Katherine to get a new tyre so we will stay at Nitmiluk Gorge next.

Kathrine George was an interesting place. We hired out canoes to take down through the george. We went through 3 of the 14 gorges which was 14Km return. When we stopped for lunch Dad threw his fishing line in to try to catch a Barramundi. He was successful! He caught his ...

... around it - very relaxing and lots of fun. We stayed most of the afternoon and then walked back, cooked ourselves some sausage sangas and drove to our next stop - Pine Creek. There isnt much here but its the turn off before Kakadu which we will start tomorrow. The caravan park is the cheapest we have stayed at yet and is very basic but it has a tavern which we might head to tonight.

... as soon as we’d organised ourselves for a swim in the freshwater. The kids used the surfboards to run off the grass and skid atop the water trying to keep their balance and the adults worked on our tans before shaming each other into completing some exercises – sit-ups, push –ups and stretches to relieve the guilt of cracking open drinks early!!

We moved all our chairs down on the turn out road near the ...

... campers who were keen to join us for a few happy hour drinks around the campfire.

Unfortunately you can't always choose your company. We got stuck with a nightmare couple from NZ who had an opinion on everything, in particular indigenous people. Danielle was giving as good as she got and the arguing was getting quite heated so I made the wise decision and cleared out ...

... Germans was probably the highlight of our 24 hours at Edith.

Also, it was once again a wee bit concerning that they had recently fished a saltwater crocodile out of the bottom pool, so no swimming for us. The park however did claim that it was supposed to be safe! As other tourists bathed we were particulalrly brave and stuck our feet in the water only for us both to be bitten by some small fish - I kid you not they must have been at least 15cm long!

Moved camp away from the horrendous huge mosquitoes at Cooinda to the Mary River Road house caravan park. Nothing specky but nice enough. On the way we went to the cultural center at Yellow waters. Was not too bad a set up and Elijah especially was interested in the lady making wristbands out of Dyed Pandanas leaves - to the point of trying one himself. Ethan had a go too although I ended up doing most of the work. I said to Jeremy ...

... The boat comprised of 3 seats along the back and 1 in front of the steering wheel. I was up the front on my own and I must admit I wasn't enjoying it. The boat would tip on an angle as we went around corners...and the fact that I just spotted a croc didn't make matters any better. We stopped off at our first fishing spot of the day. As Dean spoke to John and set about rigging up the lines, Aaron could see I wasn't too happy. I lost it when a large croc ...

... una grassa risata. L'attrezzatura del team Malta comprende: tende, materassini e cuscini per tutti; cucina da campeggio completa di ogni attrezzo immaginabile; 3 taniche da 15 litri l'una per l'acqua; una tanica da 15 litri per la benzina d'emergenza; i bagagli di 4 persone; attrezzi per la pesca; scorte alimentari per i primi due o tre giorni. Luke vuole guidare sempre, e cucinare pure (visto che fa ilo cuoco di professione): a noi non resta che caricare e scaricare Mafalda ...

AT LAST! we are out of WA, only took 7 weeks such a big state and so much to see. We are now in Katherine for a few days. Katherine is a fairly big town servicing the cattle industry. We did some canoeing at Katherine gorge, lots of crocs but mainly the freshwater variety so fairly safe, anyway they would have gone for Marc first, was a beautiful place but a bit hard work. Our ...