After three days – very hot days at Douglas Creek we headed down the highway again.  We hadn’t finished travelling north but we were off to meet Veronica’s brother Jamie at Hayes Creek where he was doing some climbing.  It was not far from where we were in Douglas Creek and it was too good an opportunity to miss him.  Hayes Creek is a fuel stop in the middle of nowhere, but just behind the campsite there is Butterfly Gap or Spider Gorge.  Here is where Jamie and his friends were climbing.  The gap is filled with butterflies but also with golden orb spiders.  Veronica and Sam had a go at climbing with Jamie but Phil and I declined the offer due to her fear of heights and Bob’s right shoulder doesn’t allow him to lift or pull up (since he slipped over at Katherine Gorge).

 

Monday 13th we headed for our final leg with the McKeon’s – Darwin.  On-route we detoured to Humpty Doo where we took a jumping croc cruise. Some people would say that these cruises are wrong but the crocs are not tame in any way and it is their choice where to come out and eat the food provided.  It was brilliant – you were very up close with these huge beasts, one of which was 6 metres longs and the dominant croc for about 1 kilometre of the river where he is king of all and he has a few challengers but they expect that given his size and aggression will rule for another 10 to 12 years – and you have to remember that they are not tame.  The cruise guide was really informative and he also put on a bird show as well.  The huge whistling kites and a huge osprey came right up to the boat.  He also told us that the whistling kites started a lot of the bush fires as they like to eat the fleeing animals when they run from the fire and have learnt how to spread the fire to get more food. 

 

On to Darwin for our final stop.  We found a camp ground just outside Darwin and set up and headed into Darwin.  Darwin was a quite modern city with high rise buildings.  Quite small for a city but had everything you need.  We met up with Jamie for dinner at the wharf and then said our goodbyes to the McKeon’s.  We had had a great three weeks with them, a bit of a squash in the car but great fun.  They flew back down to Brisbane for a family holiday in Rainbow beach and we carried on again – just the two of us.

We headed out of Darwin to Lichfield National Park.  We decided against Kakadu as many places were still not open due to being to close to the end of the wet season and it is a long way out of Darwin to travel (500km +) if most places were not open.  Lichfield National Park is still 150km out of Darwin but was on our way so was our choice.  We headed to Florence Falls first.  It had 135 steps down to the falls – was fine going down but coming up was hard in the heat!!!  The falls at the bottom were great although very rocky to get in and out and also when you were swimming along you had to be careful not to catch your legs on the rocks.  After Florence Falls we headed off to Wangi Falls.  The falls was closed for swimming but we still could go and see it.  It was magnificent, the amount of water coming down as amazing and you could hear and feel it from about 400 metres away.  We were told that it wouldn’t open until the middle of May for swimming because of the amount of water coming over it and the risk of crocodiles.  We stayed at Wangi Falls that night and in the morning did the walk round the falls.  It was still extremely hot but was a nice walk round. 

 

We headed out of Lichfield Park and back down the highway to Katherine.  This time at Katherine we turned right onto the Victoria Highway which would take us into Western Australia.  We had one more night in the Northern Territory which we stayed in Victoria Roadhouse Caravan Park.  We right on the Victoria River – which we didn’t get down to as it was dusk by the time we got there.