Helga

Helga

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Day 19: Both wheels off the ground at 240kph!!

Greetings all.
Today we decided to head up to the Kakadu National Park and have a looksee - sort of as a longer way to get to Darwin. We moseyed up the Stuart Highway to Pine Creek where we stopped for breakfast. Lovely poached eggs with extra sour from the waitress thrown in for free. Edgar and Garth turned up too not long after so the Elvis-look-alike cafe was filled with rowdy Kiwi bikers. It didn't seem the cheer the waitress up one little bit. I am sure I don't know why.

We then turned off up the Kakadu Highway and out into the national park. I'm not sure quite what I expected but all we really got was much more of what we had already had. Lots of straightish roads with boring scrub down the sides - no rain forest at all. We stopped off at a few tourist traps on the way before arriving at Jobiru (or Jabiru depending n whose signpost you were reading.) We scored a salad sandwich and then went looking for accommodation. And it was hot. 35 degrees and humid. I was gasping like a poor wee frog and even Teddy Boy was complaining.

We wound up in the Kakadu Lodge campgrounds and had to put up our tents. The ground was like concrete and I ended up bashing in the pegs with a rock. bash and drip. Bash and drip ... you get the picture.

Dick decided he wanted to have a scenic flight over the park so called up the local scenic flight company and using all that muesli experience talked them into offering two half-price flights which included senior discounts. The plane was a GA8 Aerovan made in Australia. Hence the title. It went to one end of the runway and thundered down to take off and at 240kph got both wheels off the ground. (Had you going there huh? No? Bugger.)

Great flight over the park with some better idea of what it is really like - especially the water falls and the escarpments. Tried to take some photos but without much success. Got home just as the campsite was hit by a rainstorm and had to scurry around getting my washing off the line!

Got back to the tentsite and found that Edgar & Garth had also turned up and (having checked the prices at the local resort) had put up their tents near where I had the flag flying. We had a meal together by the pool and then went to our respective tents to try and sleep. An impossible task. It was so hot.

It was not much fun. The temperature was well into the mid-30s, very humid and no breeze. At all. We had to keep our tents closed because of the mossies so not much fun was had by anyone - except the dingoes which were conducted their annual howling at the moon competitions.

Thats it :-)

1 comment:

  1. Stop moaning about the heat its ferking freezing here. Still sounds like fun though.

    ReplyDelete