Marnie, Susan and Stephen and friend?
Tuesday 6th August, 2024
We are finally on the move again. We ended up spending the afternoon/early evening at the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens. It is such a lovely green space. We took another walk around before driving back to the caravan park.
Yesterday morning we didn't rush and were mostly ready to leave by 10.00 a.m. The mornings in Darwin are usually cool and fresh at this time of year, but when you are busy it is still possible to work up a sweat, which I did.
The Stuart Highway remains a four lane highway for quite a distance out of Darwin. That made for easy driving. We fueled up at a place out of the city. On our way there we noticed a supermarket not far from the caravan park. We had been looking for one on Google Maps, but the closest one we found was in Nightcliff. A reminder to search more diligently!
We had lunch in Batchelor next to a lovely green park. We were in deep shade and were quite comfortable for an hour or so. Our impressions of the place are that it is a pretty village. I read up on the history of the town. It seems that when our father worked at Rum Jungle the mine was quite new. Batchelor was the residential village for the workers. Marie and I lived there with our parents until we were 3 and 4 years of age. Then Daddy needed to go to a hospital in Queensland and Marie and I travelled in the care of the 'air hostess' to Perth to be with the grandparents, now living there. The grandparents lived just a few kilometres from Stephen's family home in what was then Queens Park, but is now Cannington.
When we returned about 7 months later our parents were living in Alice Springs, and that is the town we remember.
Batchelor. There is a Heritage Walk that we can do tomorrow if we wish.
Litchfield National Park
this morning from the van
Batchelor is now The Gateway to Litchfield Park and thriving, with about four caravan parks, a general store, swimming pool and small, local population. The mine closed in 1971 and is one of the most polluted places in the world, according to the potted history I read. Fortunately, the National Park was established and has become a very popular place to visit.
Our impressions are that most attractions are contained in a much smaller area than Kakadu. We drove through the park slowly to our campsite at Florence Falls. It was very hot, so we waited until sunset to walk to the falls. Very beautiful, one of the best we have seen on our travels. We will go back this morning to take photos in daylight.
On the way here we also stopped at the Magnetic Termite Mounds. They are very different to the 'cathedral' mounds of other termites as they face north/south, with thin edges. They look a little bit like large tombstones. I'll post some photos in a separate post.
Overnight we set up our new fan with the battery I had bought for it, so as not to draw on the van batteries. On the low setting it worked for nine hours straight. I switched it off towards morning as we were a bit cold. The battery was expensive, but I'm glad I bought it now as it has really proved it's worth.
There are no campsites available in the park for the next week or so. We want to explore more of the places here, so have booked a night in the Batchelor Caravan Park. A powered site, as we are feeling the effects of the heat and it will be nice to be able to look forward to air conditioning at the end of the day.
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