Adelaide River & Douglas Hot Springs

Over the next week we spent a few days relaxing (for most) and working (for me – EOFY!) at Adelaide River. We had our first pub meal which was lovely! This was the site of the army base during WWII so we walked out to the war cemetery the next morning. Master J walked the entire cemetery reading out the inscriptions on each tombstone and in doing so obviously brought home to him how many young men – brothers, husbands, fathers – lost their lives on Australian soil. Miss E also found the cemetery sobering after finding the burial place of the Post Office workers, and in particular, Iris who died in the bombing of Darwin. Miss E had read a book earlier this year called “The Forgotten Pearl” which had a fictional account of the bombing of Darwin and included “Iris”.

That evening we were next to some travelling GREAT-grandparents (in their late 80’s) who took a particular interest in the younger members of our clan. They spent a good hour teaching them how to make and throw a great acrobatic paper airplane! I want to be just like them when I’m a great-grandie!!

From Adelaide River we moved a little bit southwest to a place called Douglas Hot Springs. Cindy – please thank your sister for this recommendation – it was Lovely!! It was now NT school holidays so there were quite a few families around including some very hospitable locals (thanks Lisa!) and another family from Ballarat. We spent 2 lovely days relaxing in the hot springs, singing by campfires (still not sure Dutchmen playing guitar to Waltzing Matilda works – at least not in waltz style!), kids making clay art in the riverbed and trying to catch little fish. 

Hot Springs at dawn

We went up the 4WD track with another Victorian family to Butterfly Gorge – now voted by the kids as the worst gorge we’ve ever visited. We were forewarned by a local and will now heed all local warnings ;)

Butterfly Gorge is meant to be renowned for butterflies and we saw a couple but not many. Instead, we tromped through a half burnt out monsoon rainforest, waded through a stagnant, scum-topped pool (up to our ARMPITS) only to reach the gorge that was a little less stagnant, although had potential IN THE WET SEASON! Jesse was about the only person who had fun as there was another boy his age to romp around with in the filth :P

Deceptively pretty Butterfly Gorge

When we got back to our campsite, we then spent the next few hours trying to

a)      Get the scum off our legs by rubbing sand and water from the running creek  over them

b)      Get the orange muck out of our bathers

c)       Work out what to do with Kieren’s white shirt that was now stained orange! (I ended up chucking it out after napisan x 2 failed)

d)      Remind myself to not trust wikicamp apps but listen to locals!

The day finished on a high though with another campfire with friends in which all of the primary school girls sang songs (complete with actions from the preppies!).

I also had to do some business banking – the only place I could get mobile reception was in a pub 10km’s down the road beside the Douglas River. So I sat on a barstool all afternoon doing the pays listening to fishing stories care of the locals. Life’s never boring on the road!

Back on the road again, we had to stop in Katherine for a day to refuel, restock and take advantage of free wifi in their library (BOOKS! The kids want books!). We ran into our friends that we met at the Devil’s Marbles and had a wonderful dinner together swapping stories and having fun. We were sad to leave as they were heading north and we were heading west. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again though!

The drive from Katherine to the WA border was a long one so we set out early. Our only stop was a trip out to the Gregory Tree – an amazing Boab tree inscribed with the pioneering expedition dates from 169 years ago!! We then made our way over a very dusty track to the Zebra Rock Mine Campsite. But that’s a story for the next blog post :)