Darwin Bound

29th May 2013

Today was another early start with us all waking just on day break, which was very nice as we could see the colours of the sunrise come up over the top of Wangi Falls. After the normal morning routine, we packed down and got ready to hit the road bound for Darwin.

Our first stop of the morning was at Cascade Falls, which was only a short drive away. When we arrived, Maggie was not too keen on an early hike, so while Rach and Maggie did some school work in the car, Chloe and I set off to walk the 1.3kms trail to the lower section of the falls.

It was a beautiful walk, with the track once again following a creek with crystal clear water. We  reached the falls fairly quickly and while we were exploring the area, I tried to walk off the track for some photo's. Well when I did, I walked straight into a Gold Orb Spiders web, complete with a big bloody spider in it which made me give out a little man scream & gave us a good laugh to start the day.
As you can appreciate, once this had happened we decided it was only fair to head back to the car and not keep Rach & Mags waiting too long (nothing to do with the spider incident of course) and to speed the process up, we ran back which again was a lot of fun!

Chloe at Cascade Falls

We then made our way to the site of Bamboo CreekTin Mine, which as the name suggests was an abandoned tin mine, believe it or not on the banks of Bamboo Creek, it was a very interesting stop before we continued on our way. We had decided to travel out the other end of the park to save us back tracking, which meant this morning we hit some more gravel road on the way through to Berry Springs, where we stopped at the Territory Wildlife Park.

Remains of Bamboo Creek Tin Mine

Here we had lunch and explored the park, which at the start I was a little sceptical about, but it turned out to be brilliant. We spent just over 4hrs there and what we loved about it was the way that all the walking trails had been set through natural bush habitats. The Monsoon Rainforest was a highlight, as we walked through small shelters depicting different regions of the forest and the bird life you could find within each stage. The girls particularly like the Wet Season storm simulation, complete with thunder and lightning and heavy down poor onto the forest in front of the shelter.

The Girls on the Monsoon Rainforest boardwalk

This walk climbed up to tree top height and ended by walking into a very large aviary, it was really well done. We took the boardwalk down to the bottom where the girls were allowed to feed the Curlews walking around. To do this they both had to put there hand into a bucket of live crickets and throw them out, they also did the same with live meal worms, which they both loved. Chloe even got the chance to  hand feed a Tawny Frogmouth, one of her favourite birds.

The park also had a full size aquarium (very similar to AQWA) which was awesome. It again displayed the local territory waterscapes and the corals, fish and crocodiles that could found in them. As time was getting on, we had to make a move, but the girls had one more highlight in stall.

Just near the exit there was a one of the rangers holding an albino Carpet Python, which Chloe got to hold and Maggie got to touch with her index finger (lets just say she wasn't as keen as her sister).

So we left the park and drove the last 100kms or so to Rach's Uncle George's place, which is about 90kms out of Darwin on the Arnhem Highway. It was the first time I had met George and it was great to  spend the night getting to know him and watching him and Rach catch up.

We are once again veery lucky to have a base from which to explore and we are very thankful to George for his hospitality. Tomorrow we explore Darwin City, who knows what it will bring, until then....