Half-lap Day 42: Batchelor -> Darwin

We were fairly slow getting started in the morning, and did a relaxed pack up. The kids played with their Tasmanian friends, telling jokes (we learnt some good ones), playing cards, playing with Millie’s toys and riding their bikes. A couple of other girls came and joined them as well for a while. The girls hid all of Millie’s toys in the trees and bushes, and there were a few stressful moments a bit later when we took a while to find some of them – they all turned up though.

Caitlin and I wandered over to the Sunday markets once we were nearly packed. We saw some beautiful jewellery made from sandalwood seeds, and bought a delicious home grown watermelon, as well as finding (and buying) a copy of The Princess Bride on DVD. We chatted for a while to a lady who was selling chicks, then headed back to camp. We finished hooking the trailer up, said goodbye to Jim, our fantastic host, then got underway.

This was our shortest days driving, a bit less than an hour, to stay with friends of friends just near Humpty Doo. They gave us a spot over to the side of their house where we could put up our tent, under huge mango trees so we have heaps of shade. We have access to the toilet and shower in their granny flat, and they made us feel incredibly welcome. While we were setting up they made up some huge plates of sandwiches so we all sat together and chatted and ate. The kids then went for a swim in their new pool, the guys sat and chatted and surpervised while I went to the supermarket with the women. They cooked a magnificent BBQ in the evening and asked us to join them, the food was great and the company was relaxed and friendly. They have a dog, chickens, ducks, chicks, rabbits and guinea pigs, and a trampoline, so the kids were very happily occupied for the entire afternoon.

After dinner we came back to our tent and finished setting up the beds and so on. I was a bit worried as there were so many green ants around that if we stood still our feet would soon be covered – but I think it was just the time of day, they settled down as the evening progressed. We quickly got to bed and read for a while. It was very hot and humid – it’s getting a bit easier to fall asleep with the heat, and the fans certainly help, but it’s still quite uncomfortable. Funny to think that early in the trip we had every zip on the tent shut tight and used every blanket and our hot water bottles, now we have everything open wide (fly screens closed of course), we’re not even using sheets at the start of the night and are struggling to find clothes cool enough to sleep in.

Half-lap Day 40: Batchelor

It started raining, heavily, during the night so Caitlin, Tony and I were up getting the towels and swimmers in under cover, and getting things off the table that we didn’t want to be wet. It was tropical rain – hot in between the drops and even though the water was cold it wasn’t unpleasant getting wet.

I managed to doze off a little before waking up again in the morning. LiAM and I were up first and got up to play cards. Millie joined us after a while and the 3 of us played. For the second morning in a row I went to put water in my kettle for a cup of tea and a little frog came out of the tap with the water.

The kids had seen some other kids nearby – it turned out to be one of the families we’d played with at Mataranka, so the kids chatted and played throughout the morning. I spoke to a friend on the phone and sorted out our washing. We had planned to go back to the national park , then Millie said she wanted to swim in the pool at the caravan park, so we decided to do that first.

Tony took the kids to pool and I stayed at the tent doing some more blogging and catching up on a few more things. It was hot and humid but very peaceful. The kids loved the pool and swam for a few hours, and were reluctant to go anywhere else, so we decided to stay another day in Batchelor and just spend today hanging around taking it easy. I went and paid for our 4^th night and chatted to a guy who had been out to the national park today and got more information about the various walks and swimming holes we could go to.

We played some more card games and the kids watched some videos on the iPad, I read my book for a while and after a relaxing afternoon I took the kids back to the pool for another swim. We talked to a few couples who were swimming and then the kids’ friends from the morning came to the pool, they all swam together and I chatted to the dad about 90s music bands. The kids swam until the mossies got really bad, then we headed back to the tent to have hotdogs for tea. Millie and I went to have a shower and had a green tree frog up on the shower wall watching us. Caitlin joined us and the girls had a play with the frog – it jumped out of Caitlin’s hands and on to her face which surprised and delighted everybody. Back to the tent where we got ready for bed and read for a while.

Half-lap Day 38: Katherine -> Batchelor

Tony and I were up early again, setting things up for another potential day without the car. I drove into town to test it out, and get milk and a couple of other supplies. At first it didn’t overheat, but when I cranked the AC up the temperature started going up. I dropped off the milk and fridge and other necessities and took it around to the mechanic, this time with the temp still hot so that he could see it. He jumped in to the drivers seat and we took it for a drive, he could get it to cool down but then it did heat up again when driving around town.

He decided to change the thermostat – the one he’d ordered hadn’t come so he’d put in an after-market one, he thought maybe putting in the genuine part might fix it. He dropped me back at the caravan park and said he’d call me when it was done.

We spent the morning hanging around again, playing with the puppies and kittens, doing puzzles, I read Brisingr for a while. Tony went for a bike ride on Caitlin’s bike, to get a new puncture kit for his tyre which was flat again. He had discovered a big thorn through his tyre which may have been repuncturing the tube. Being near the RAAF base, we’d heard fighter planes several times during our stay but hadn’t seen them, today they came right overhead which was a bit exciting.

I talked to the mechanic after lunch and changing the thermostat hadn’t helped. They’d tried a few other little things with no luck, and the next step was to take out the water pump and check it. I asked if it would be fine to drive to Darwin, and he talked about how to manage things if the temperature started to rise, so we decided to pack up and head north and try to get the car fixed when we got to Darwin.

Tony rode over to get the car around 2pm, and we had everything packed up and ready to go by just after 4, one of our quickest pack ups (from scratch) yet. We rang a caravan park in Batchelor and booked in for the night so we weren’t worried about having to try to find somewhere when we arrived. The old billy goat came over while were packing and it took Tony quite a while to get rid of him – he just wanted to stick around and wouldn’t be pushed or dragged or scared away – he even went up on his hind legs a couple of times like he wanted to fight - which was scary to watch but didn’t bother Tony. We said goodbye to the owners and to the puppies (kids were a bit sad at that) and finally left.

Heading out of town and for the first half an hour or so we were a bit worried about how the car would manage, especially with the load of the trailer on. Whenever it heated up Tony popped it into neutral and revved the engine and it cooled back down, and after a while the temperature stopped going up. Tony found that driving a bit faster than usual helped keep it cooler too.(we normally sit around 80 or 90km/hr with the trailer on, 100km/hr seemed to work better today). After an hour or so we tried putting the air conditioner on and the temperature stayed stable – so it was a much more comfortable drive than we had anticipated, and we made it to Batchelor by 6.50pm. Reception at the caravan park closed at 7, and the guy was happy to see us as he thought perhaps our car hadn’t made it. He said it would have stayed open a little longer for us seeing as we’d rung – he was so friendly and helpful and it was a great welcome after a hot and frustrating day.

It was practically dark by the time we started setting up, in a great bush site at the back of the caravan park. There were a lot of mosquitoes but we sprayed ourselves and things settled down a bit. We are fairly well practiced at setting up now so the dark didn’t slow us down too much – and it was so great to see the stars again! Our campsite in Katherine had a light on a big pole right next to our tent, so we were under artificial light the whole evening and night, and it was so refreshing to just be outside and feel part of the night and the surrounds again. We hadn’t realised how much our campground was getting us down, as well as the worry about the car it was hot and dry and dusty and there was no view, it was too far to walk to anything in the heat so we had felt quite stuck – it’s different having a rest day because we choose to as opposed to having a rest day because we can’t get anywhere. The kids explored the park while Tony and I settled back into a happy holiday routine and both felt like we were enjoying our trip again and could look forward to the rest of it.

We had a conglomeration of left overs for dinner and then tried to set up our new tent fans to cool the tent down a bit. This is definitely the most humid place we’ve been, we were still sweating profusely as we went to bed and there was little relief from the heat.