The most awesome thing about staying in Darwin for the wet is the wonderful workouts we’re doing. What started as with us finally deciding to get our kettlebells out in order to tighten our growing holidaying gurths, has turned into a group fitness club at our caravan park (aka “The Compound” because most days we don’t even bother to venture out of it).

Our session this morning had 7 people. I had set up 8 stations with different exercises and we all rotated around them twice. A nice workout, and my legs are feeling it now. This has inspired others to also run sessions. Anne is running an Aquaerobics session tomorrow arvo and Julie is running a fantastic yoga session on Friday arvo. Julie is a Canadian yoga instructor who specialises in “hot yoga”. Yoga you do in specially designed 40 degree 50% humidity studios. Darwin’s afternoons are pretty damn close to this so we do it sitting under the trees out in the caravan park. Julie ran a session yesterday and we were all blissed out by the end of it. Divine! I could get addicted to it.

So the schedule so far is Tue, Thur, Sat we do my kettlebell circuits. Wed we do Aquaerobics. Friday we do Yoga. Sunday is our designated rest day so have to think of something for Monday and we’re done. Maybe a run/walk around the park or another Yoga session. oooommmm!

Well it’s been a lovely Christmas this year. Very different being on the road. A lot less stressful than normal, although we still went overboard on the boys’ presents so we’re going to have to do a big Op shop dump before we leave Darwin. The caravan was full of presents (stored under the dining table) then full of wrapping paper after they were all opened. Very fun morning though!

We spent Christmas Eve with our lovely new friends Muz & Jules feasting on local prawns before heading out to look at Darwin’s Christmas lights. The first house was awesome but the rest were surprisingly low key. Found out later we missed the best neighbourhood in Darwin but got to see it a few days later. Still not as good as Bundy’s Thomas Healy drive!

After opening the pressies on xmas morning, we ventured out for a pancakes and champa’s breaky with a few fellow campers here at the camp kitchen. Yummo! Then on to the other camp kitchen for lunch with the Flynn’s (Wendy & Pete), the Canadians (Julie & Trent) and Annette & Wazza. There were 9 kids in all and Waz dressed up in a summer santa suit and gave all the kids some pressies. We had turkey, roast pork (including very yummy crackling), ham, chicken, a scrumpcious sweet potato bake, a creamy potato bake and a couple of salads. Then topped it all off with individual pavlova’s. It was a great day and evening!

So we made it to Darwin. Have been here a little while now. So far, quite impressed. A lovely, modern bustling town which comes as a bit of a shock to the system after travelling up the dry, desolate middle of Australia. We’ve ummed and ahhhhed about how long we should hang out here and have finally decided to hang out for the wet. That is, leave next April/May. Main reason being that they’ve now closed the Bungles and the Gibb River Rd, and since we won’t be up this way again anytime too soon, we have to wait until they reopen again after the wet. At least Darwin is a nice place to hang out in. Surprisingly so really.

Our life since arriving here has been quite low key. Mainly hiding out in public libraries finishing off Alex’s school work for the year. He’s going really well with his schoolwork. I’m feeling quite proud of what we have achieved this year. Learning to read, write, add and subtract. Quite an achievement given how little time we’ve spent on it.

Apart from that, we’ve explored some of this town. We’ve had dinner at the Wharf where the boys have loved feeding the huge barra under the jetty. We’ve done what the locals do on a Saturday night and experienced the Mud Racing where the boys got covered head to toe in mud! Also spent a couple of days in the wonderful NT museum checking out their very insightful Cyclone Tracy exhibit as well as “Sweetheart”… a huge croc caught and accidently drowned in a local river.

We’ve had a couple of visits from family and friends while we’ve been here. Mum came up from Melbourne for a couple of weeks in October. Jen and Emily came for a chill out week in December and got to experience some really wildly wet & stormy weather when we got the tropical low pressure system that eventually built up to Cyclone Laurence.

The most surprising thing though, is how many families like us there are in the Caravan Park. Many of whom are staying put here for the wet. Surprising really. It’s great for the boys because they’ve got lots of new friends to play with here.

Sean pulled a dead man out of the Wangi Falls plunge pool yesterday. He was swimming over to one of the waterfalls with the boys, wearing his goggles and spotted him lying face down on the bottom of the pool, about 12 foot under water. The boys were with him unfortunately and Oscar has just told me he said to them “Oh, this is not good. Boys go and get mummy and tell her to go to the emergency phone.” Then he dove down, picked him up and swam him back to the bank. I was actually sitting out on our picnic rug, reading my book and happened to glance up and saw Sean bringing a person in and blowing in his mouth. I was in disbelief and immediately scanned for the boys, fearing the worst, but thankfully spotted them swimming behind him. I jumped up and ran over to him and asked if he wanted me to run to the emergency call device. He told me he had found him on the bottom of the pool and off I ran, quite a long way uphill to the kiosk. It was the sprint of my life and when I finally got there the bloody ECD didn’t work. At least it got an alarm of some sort going, even though they couldn’t hear what I was saying. A few seconds later the Rangers called the kiosk to get the details. Eventually, I ran back down and saw a heap of people huddling round and giving CPR. The boys, bless their souls, had listened to their daddy and were sitting a few metres away from the scene on our rug. After a quick chat to Sean to give him the update, I had a brief look at the guy through all the people. He looked a goners. Blue lips. Eyes only the slightest bit open. Spirit well and truly gone. I went and sat with the boys and answered their myriad of questions about dead people and what everyone was doing to him. We waited for ages for the Ranges turned up with their oxygen tank and gear, then soon after the NT police from Batchelor, who got straight onto their sat phone. I then packed up our gear and headed back up to our campsite with the boys, leaving Sean down there to talk to the police.

Sean had dragged him out at 4:10 and they were still CPRing him at 5pm when we left. About 10-15 minutes later we saw the Care Flight chopper fly in and land in the car park. Apparently the ambulance from Batchelor had also turned up in the meantime. Unfortunately they never did revive him. He’d obviously been under for too long. I actually remember seeing him hanging around the stairs at the entrance to the pool when I first went in with the boys. He had a snorkelling mask on, but no mouthpiece. Then we swam out to the middle of the pool – the sandy bit – and I remember seeing him there too. It appears that he had tried to swim out to the waterfall, not realising how deep it was and just couldn’t swim back up. He obviously had not made too much commotion as there were quite a few people there and no one noticed anything. I then swam back to the shore with the boys, hopped out to get Sean, had a brief chat with him before he went in and a few minutes after that they started their swim to waterfall. So the guy would’ve been under for anywhere from a couple of minutes up to a max of 20, I reckon. It must’ve been a while, though, because his friends were anxiously looking for him on the shore and one of them had actually borrowed Sean’s goggles to try to find him but had swum over to the other waterfall and not in the direction of the one Sean was taking the boys. Sadly! I guess it was his time and that’s all that could be done. No one will ever know exactly what happened to him. He was 29 and from Taiwan, travelling with his girlfriend and another couple. It was them that Sean and I were most worried about. We’re hoping the police looked after them. Sean gave the friend a hug and told him that we could make them some dinner and they could stay with us, and told the police the same thing but they told us they’d put them up in Batchelor. The friend said he just wanted to stay with his mate and thanked him for the offer in very broken English. Poor souls. Not a good end to their holiday. And having to go back home to face the parents.

How fickle life is. How quickly it can be taken away. No warning. No alarm. Just here one second and gone the next. How easily it can happen to anyone. Never take life for granted. Be grateful for every moment we have for it can be gone in a flash.

Have started running again! First run since I sprained my ankle in Melbourne. Pathetic, hey! But at least I finally started again. And in this awful heat too. Must be the fact that I’m having to bare my body in togs again. First run was Sunday morning. Did 4.8km pretty much continuously, with only one break half way for a minute or so of walking. Then ran 5km yesterday morning. Very happy that my cardio ability has not declined too much. Just my legs feeling it. Every muscle.

After leaving the magnificent Devil’s Marbles, we spent a night at a very crowded rest area on the highway near Newcastle Waters. It was around this area that the dry red centre meets the wet top end. The landscape started to change when we drove north the next day.

Next stop was at Elsey National Park campground at Mataranka. A great national park campground with hot showers! Given that we hadn’t had showers for 2 days in the boiling heat, it was a real luxury. We checked out the thermal pools at Mataranka homestead the first day. Then Bitter Springs the second. Then swam in the Roper River over some rapids on the day we left. The pools were 34C, which any place else would feel hot, but given the outside temp has been hovering at 40C, they felt nice and cool. The boys have been swimming their hearts out and absolutely loving it.

Even here at Katherine, our caravan park is right near the town’s hot springs, which Sean and the boys checked out last night while I cooked dinner. A yummy mushroom risotto. Back into beer country now. Found Barefoot Radler on special so bought a case. Very happy!

One quick last note before boys tear each other apart… visited the Cutta Cutta Caves on way to Katherine yesterday. Really pretty. Because the cave dries up in the dry season, the stalagmites and stalactites all crystallise and the effect is spectacular. They look like they are covered in tiny diamonds and sparkle like diamonte necklaces. Something really special.

Left Alice today and drove to Devil’s Marbles. Gorgeous little campground in a gorgeous little place surrounded by the “marbles”. Feels so good to be away from the city and back into the bush. For some reason, it just lifts my heart to be out roughing it rather than in a caravan park. It has a real sense of freedom and you feel a lot more connected to nature. There’s a storm brewing tonight and its very muggy and hot… still around 30C. The moon is nearly full and backlights the clouds spectacularly. A little while ago there was a gap in the clouds and the moon shone through the middle making what looked like a night version of “god’s rays” with the rain reflecting the moonlight. Quite awe inspiring! We were having a conversation about how much better it felt to be out here than in a caravan park and Alex piped up and said, in a bewildered manner, “but the caravan park has a jumping pillow, a BMX track, a playground, showers and best of all, toilets with water that don’t stink!” he was perplexed as to why we’d rather bush camp than caravan park it. I guess a lot of people would be. But for me, give me nature any day!

Went to the Desert Park yesterday. Really nice and relaxing place. Got an idea for journal writing. Short little notes for every day rather than my long detailed notes. Hopefully will get more entires, more memories. Trying to capture it all is impossible. More blog-like, I guess.

Desert Park very relaxing place. Walked and walked and walked. Learned a lot about aboriginal culture… bush foods, walkabouts, language, family, etc. birds of prey show also good with birds flying about on cue.

Last full day in Alice today. Funny place. Don’t know whether I like it or not. Don’t feel compelled to stay. Want to get up north now. Dow we do tourist stuff or city stuff? That is the dilemma today. Maybe a bit of both.

Starting to become more aware of energy levels. Both Sean and I noticed how energy drained we felt after a few hours of shopping in target and kmart on Monday. I guess we’re not used to that whole onslaught on our senses and desires. We really have gotten used to living with what we have which we realise is extremely luxurious compared to many others. Relativity is the key, I guess. When in a city we feel like we don’t have enough. Thanks to being exposed to marketing mostly. But in the bush we feel like we have too much. We feel over indulgent. Life doesn’t need to be as complex as we humans have made it. We really don’t need much but we’ve been programmed to believe otherwise and if you believe in that crap, it leads to a very unhappy, unreal (as in false) life. I only hope I can retain this perspective once we settle back into urban life. I think maybe meditation might be a good way of maintaining objectivity and mindfulness. One of the goals of the treip for me is to get into a routine with fitness, meditation and reiki. Not doing too well at the moment… but can only keep trying.

Fitness. Have dropped it all and am starting to pile it on again. Clothes getting tighter. Damn it! Gotta get back into it again. Hardest part is starting again. If I don’t do it now when my time is my own, what hope do I have when it’s not so free. Need a goal again. That’s what’s missing. Must find a fun run to do and start training for it. Missing my training partner too. A little competition and encouragement makes all the difference.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the difference between how people relate in a caravan park vs. bush camping. The fewer the people, the more they communicate and share. We haven’t met any of our neighbours here in Alice but we always talk to others in rest areas or national park campgrounds. It reflects the sense of community in a city versus the country. The more people around, the lonelier and more isolated people are emotionally. Interesting that this is also reflected in our little microcosm of camping and travelling.

Have been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to figure out what day it is. Totally lost track… we left the west macs on Friday and headed straight into alice for a day’s shopping and to do our laundry. Sean wanted a solar panel for the batter that runs the car fridge, a new leg for the caravan (thanks to the Mareenie Loop road for busting the bolt off it) and we needed to do a grocery shop, fuel up and pick up our mail. We decided to stay the night at HeaviTree Gap caravan parak which was pretty grotty and have since decided not to go back there as someone stole my shmiko laundry basket from the top of the washing machine, much to my absolute disgust. The noise blearing from the tavern till 11:30pm was not great either.

We headed into the East Macs the next morning and have set ourselves up at Trephina. A delightful little spot in between a couple of the steep red rocky barren east mac moutnains. Apparently the gorge is meant to be beautiful. We had intended to walk down there the day we arrived but just collapsed in a heap and lazed about instead, while the boys gate crashed a birthday party in a nearby campsite. We didn’t see them for a couple of hours which was a lovely little bit of respite. I took the opportunity to read and have a nanny nap. The big day at Alice had absolutely exhausted us and the heat wave that we are experiencing at the moment (high 30’s, like 38-40) was the icing on the cake! Apparently yesterday was the hottest august day in Alice ever recorded!

The reason we wanted to head so quickly to the east macs was for the ranger campfire talk last night here at Trephina and the 2 ranger talks at Arltunga today. Last night was certainly worth racing here for. The ranger set up a couple of billys on the fire and Sean and I enjoyed a billy tea while the boys had a hot Milo. They were so excited to be drinking their own warm drink around the fire, just like us grown ups.the ranger talk was fantastic. He was a very laid back quietly spoken guyy who was the senior ranger for the East district of parks (of which there are 7 in total) and had a real passion and enthusiasm for his job. It was really contagious and sean and I left it feeling like we both wanted to work as Rangers.

Then we went to Arltunga today to see him operate an old battery which was used to crush gold bearing rocks. He had restored it himself a few years back. He also took us through an old gold mine where he told us the story behind the place and the people who lived there. A very interesting place that led to the settling of white people in the centre.

Oscar was hoping to find a McDonalds when we reached the Macdonnell Ranges. He was sadly disappointed! As you can tell, I am finding it hard to fit in time for journal writing. The only chance I get is first thing in the morning before the boys get up but lately the boys have been waking up before me. Oscar’s not very happy with the birds that are so noisy so early in the morning, and neither am I! But there is just so much to do out here. We live in the most spectacularly diverse and stunning country. There are so many spots to explore and experience. Everywhere we go we find people who rave about other places. Places we had not originally planned to visit but then become part of our itinerary. Just as well we don’t have a plan otherwise we’d miss the best bits.

After 5 wonderful nights at Palm Valley we finally pulled ourselves away and headed towards Orminston Gorge, stopping for lunch at Gosse Bluff, a spectacularly huge meteor crater site, which fascinated the boys no end. Ormiston is a really jam packed, ugly, tiny campground but a least it has hot showers and free gas BBQs.

Yesterday we walked into the gorge via the Ghost Gum lookout and the boys had a splash around in the waterhole, annoying the magnificent heron and coumarone who were fishing in it.

After that we drove back to Redbank Gorge and went for a half hour walk, some of which involved climbing over big rocks in the river bed which the boys love doing, to end up at the truly spectacular gorge. It was just awe inspiring. Probably because you couldn’t see it as you approached so it just surprised us with its beauty all of a sudden. The water was freezing but the boys took off their boots and in they went for a splash around to cool off, while Sean and I sat awestruck on the sandy beach and rocky bank. We were the only ones there for about an hour I’d say and just as we were commenting on that fact, a couple of girls appeared over the boulders. 2 Victorian’s, of course, escaping the winter. The centre is full of Victorian number plates. Almost everyone we meet is from someplace in Victoria. Anyway, the girls were great to talk to and we ended up chatting till 6pm! They had been working out at Saint Teresa, an aboriginal community, for a couple of weeks and they shared some amazing stories about their time there and up in Arnhem Land. Really positive stories about aboriginal culture and people which was nice. They told us in intricate detail how to cook Roo tails on the campfire and urged us to try it as it was a delicacy! Much to the boys disgust!!! I am definitely keen to try it out though.

Today is the anniversary of when Sean and I first met. It was 2001, so it’s been 8 years. Most amazing of all is that we are in Palm Valley on that very date! Here we find ourselves, unintentionally, unplanned, in the same rather remote spot in the middle of nowhere, on the same day that we met 8 years earlier. How is that for fate? Here we were thinking we were running behind schedule after a longer than intended stay in Melbourne, then again in the Flinders but as it turns out, it was all meant to be.

Actually its nice to be travelling a little behind the peak period, which seems to have been about 3 to 4 weeks earlier. The Ranger here said she had 100 people at her campfire talk about 4 weeks earlier whereas we only had 14 at ours! I can’t imagine having so many people here but she said everyone was camped on top of each other. That would’ve been horrible! There are only about 20 spots here, so you can imagine…

Palm Valley certainly holds a special sacredness for us. I suppose like Uluru does for it’s traditional owners. Coming here has brought back all the minute details of the time we met, as well as all the feelings we had at the time. It’s made for great conversations… funny, too, how we have met 3 Brad’s here yesterday as Sean was travelling with a Brad when we met. Given that we haven’t met any others on the trip yet, I find this rather spooky! Anyway, better retrace our steps sine I last wrote, which was quite a while ago…

After leaving Port Augusta we headed North up the Stuart to Woomera. We got there relatively early at around lunchtime so we headed to their one and only park, Breen Park, and had a picnic lunch near the aviaries. I remember that it used to have kangaroos, wallabies, some emus and such but those animals were gone and all that remained were the birds, being a few different spectacularly coloured parrots, cockatoos, peacocks, budgies and finches. Then off we went to check out the visitor centre, which was dead quiet, to ask about the Olympic Dam tours which Sean and I were hanging out to do. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed to find out that they were booked out until the following Thursday. Given that it was Friday we decided not to hang around so we continued on after checking out the big rockets on the main street. Woomera felt like a ghost town. We hardly saw a soul.

We found a great rest area at Lake Hart, a salt lake halfway between Woomera and Coober Pedy, so decided to stop there for the night. The next morning we went for a walk on the snowy looking thick crust of salt out to the water. Back up again to pack up and head to Coober Pedy. We ended up spending 5 days there, we liked it so much. Oscar keeps saying he wants to live there, in one of the underground homes (dugouts). We stayed at Riba’s which was a tiny caravan park with an underground camping area for those with tents. The first night we did the underground opal mine tour on site which was actually surprisingly great. The guys gave us a great background on opal mining, why people do it (apparently 1% strike it rich, and anyone can come along and claim a spot for mining it), what makes opal’s colours, what it actually is and how to find it. We even had a go at “slide” divining using water divining rods that looked like coat hanger wires. Slides are areas where you are likely to find opal. We even went through the intricacies involved in using the explosives and what to watch out for. It was a fascinating tour and we came away really impressed.