{"id":97,"date":"2010-08-06T18:08:42","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T10:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayl.id.au\/?page_id=97"},"modified":"2017-08-16T01:14:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T17:14:10","slug":"darwin-pg-5","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/?page_id=97","title":{"rendered":"Darwin Pg 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 9th<\/sup> The alarm went off too soon at 6:30.\u00a0 Oh, stiff legs and feet!\u00a0 We had a nice cuppa together, and then while one showered the other cooked the toast, then swap.\u00a0 WHAT are we going to spread the butter with?\u00a0 We used our saucers to put the toast on as there were only cups, saucers and drinking glasses in the crockery line and only teaspoons in the cutlery line.\u00a0 Idea!\u00a0 There were some plastic swizzle sticks with a round, flat end like a 20c coin, [forgive me if you’re not Australian.\u00a0 Maybe if you made a teaspoon round and flat instead of oval?] so that would have to do.\u00a0 One problem – we\u2019d had the butter in the fridge.\u00a0 I managed to spread the first piece each and then David was spreading the next pair.\u00a0 Snap!\u00a0 All of the remaining mornings we just used the little 20c sized bit of plastic and kept the butter out of the fridge.\u00a0 Could just as well have used our fingers for the spreading I suspect, but it kept us amused.\u00a0 Then down to the foyer-lounge for another quick cup of coffee, and then outside to wait for the coach to pick us up for today\u2019s trip to Litchfield Park.<\/p>\n

The Park entrance was about 80 kms from Darwin and was the shortest distance\/time tour of the 3 that we took.\u00a0 We saw lots of different trees and plants and the driver, Phil, gave us a really good commentary complete with a few obvious \u2018fibs\u2019 which kept us listening closely.\u00a0 Phil took a shine to David and we were honoured to be \u2018teachers pets\u2019 when he sat next to us for our lunch break and the 2 of them were happily exchanging bus driving and passenger stories.\u00a0 (David is a public transport bus driver here in Perth.)<\/p>\n

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Tolmer Falls, Litchfield Park<\/p><\/div>\n

We saw lots of waterfalls and \u2018plunge pools\u2019 and were allowed to swim in 2.\u00a0 There were a couple of walk paths with hills and steps to climb, and all sorts of plants and birds and David found a dear little lizard.\u00a0 David and Phil enjoyed another sight in one of the pools too – a nicely shaped female of the species – golden tan and a bikini the exact colour of the tan!\u00a0 What will I do with him?\u00a0 We were in and out of the bus a fair bit but it was nicely air conditioned in there and people were relaxed and patient.\u00a0 We also saw some massive termite mounds.\u00a0 There were 2 kinds, cathedral and magnetic.<\/p>\n

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Termite Mounds<\/p><\/div>\n

The cathedral mounds had a fairly round shaped base, but there were a lot of \u2018folds\u2019 to catch the cooling breezes and keep the temperature down inside.\u00a0 The magnetic mounds were on more of a cigar\/oval shaped base and were all pointing their narrow ends in the same direction – hence the name magnetic.\u00a0 David and I have a dispute about whether they point North\/South or West\/East and I can\u2019t find it in any of our brochures or encyclopaedias [this story was written before the web was popular so I couldn’t Google it and therefore I won’t change it from the original], so won\u2019t tell you which in case I\u2019m wrong.\u00a0 Again this is for cooling and heating purposes for the mound.\u00a0 Both types of mound had some very tall specimens.\u00a0 We walked around some that were well over 6 metres high.<\/p>\n

Lunch, to return to a past subject that was out of place earlier, was a nice little picnic box each with cold chicken, salad, a bread roll, a \u2018box\u2019 fruit-juice and an apple.\u00a0 There was a cake or biscuit or something too, but neither of us can remember what it was.\u00a0 We were warned not to leave our lunch unattended or take our eyes of it as the kites [a bird of prey] would swoop down and steal it from our hands if we weren\u2019t wary.\u00a0 We could see them all circling overhead.<\/p>\n

After lunch, on the way to the plunge pool for a swim, there was a HUGE lizard.\u00a0 I thought David had taken a photo but it seems not.\u00a0 He was about 2 metres long, nose to tail, and had obviously eaten recently as he had a big, round tummy.\u00a0 He just ambled across the pathway and was not fussed about all the people gawking at him.\u00a0 When we got to the water hole there were quite a few Aboriginal children walking around barefoot.\u00a0 When we tried it we said ooch ouch because of all the little pebbles.\u00a0 They must be really tough!\u00a0 David went in to the water amongst the palms when one chap asked if he had seen what he was swimming with.\u00a0 There was a small lizard on one of the palm trunks.\u00a0 David said something about maybe not swimming after all and the chap said \u201cThat\u2019s nothing.\u00a0 You should see the one that chased him up there!\u201d\u00a0 We think<\/span> he was joking.<\/p>\n

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Brave David at Litchfield Park<\/p><\/div>\n

David did swim.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel much like inflicting my bathered body on the world, especially after lunch, so walked into the water knee deep, trousers and all, and sat on the side of the entry steps and happily dangled my lower legs in the water, watched the other people go in and out, and looked at the twin waterfalls coming into the pool.\u00a0 My trousers were just a light cotton and dried in about 2 minutes once we got out of the water.<\/p>\n

We had a lovely day and were delivered back to our hotel around 6:30.\u00a0 We dropped our touristy things off and went to Sizzlers* for tea.\u00a0 Andy had given us $20 to buy ourselves a Sizzler meal, so it was nice to be able to do it while on holiday.\u00a0 Then we walked around town a bit more and \u2018home\u2019 and bed once more.\u00a0 [*Sizzlers is a fairly cheap, buffet style restaurant which makes a pleasant, casual night out.]<\/p>\n

Tuesday 10th<\/sup> Stiff again when we woke up and more toast spread partly with our fingernails for breaky.\u00a0 Officially this was our other free day, but we had decided what we wanted to do. Off to the hire car place next to Delicious Blue and got a little Ford Fiesta for the day so that we could go to the Territory Wildlife Park.\u00a0 Everyone who had been to Darwin said \u2018Don\u2019t miss it!\u2019 but the only way to get there was to catch a tour coach which would only stay for \u00bd a day and then go on a jumping crocodile cruise in the afternoon.\u00a0 Nah!\u00a0 We wanted to stay all day and forget the crocs, so had to drive ourselves.\u00a0 Interesting little car.\u00a0 Sounded as if you were asking the world of the engine, and we were in 5th gear by the time we were doing 70 kph, but she eventually got up to 110 kph and sat there happily enough for the journeys.\u00a0 David drove there and I drove back so that we\u2019d both had a turn.\u00a0 The brochure for the Wildlife Park says \u201845 mins drive south of Darwin\u2019 but I think it was about 70 kms as distance means more than time.\u00a0 We got there and back within our 150 km allowance for the car.<\/p>\n

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Monday 9th The alarm went off too soon at 6:30.\u00a0 Oh, stiff legs and feet!\u00a0 We had a nice cuppa together, and then while one showered the other cooked the toast, then swap.\u00a0 WHAT are we going to spread the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":33,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-97","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3791,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/97\/revisions\/3791"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}