Into the NT

Left Lawn Hill yesterday after four nights, a little sorry to leave as we’d had such a good time there. A bit late getting away, as people came to say goodbye to us, have a chat and exchange contact details etc. Very friendly place.

Karen got know a lot of other people in the camping ground, partly because our campsite was by the river, 200 metres from the amenities block, and there was a confusingly large number of passage ways through the trees, only one of which led to the amenities, and all of which looked pretty the same at night time. One night she was gone for a VERY LONG TIME. When she returned she had met most everyone in the camping ground, as well as many in the caravan park next door, crashed through trees and bushes, walked into the low fence that stops people falling into the river, and finally [I claim the fading light on my headlamp and a few glasses of fine white Riesling as contributing factors – KM] got a complete stranger to walk her home. Next day we set up the GPS with waypoints for “TENT” and “AMEN” to help with navigation. The designers of GPS system probably hadn’t anticipated this application of the technology, but it proved very effective. (If it hadn’t worked, she planned to set out the next night with the EPIRB as well).

Writing this from a bush campsite beside the Calvert River, about halfway around the Gulf of Carpentaria, about 300km from Burketown and 200km from Borroloola, the two nearest towns. There’s palm trees, red-tailed black cockatoos, lorikeets, blue-winged kookaburras, and a menagerie of other birds we haven’t yet identified. Warning signs about estuarine crocodiles, but we haven’t seen one yet…

We’re really roughing it out here. Last night after a sunset walk to photograph the birds we had a rustic dinner of scotch fillet, potatoes mashed with crème fraiche, snow peas, fresh mushrooms and onions, washed down with a bottle of aged Hunter Valley Semillon. A hot shower using our new little 12volt water pump (thank you, Scott!), and retired to bed, feeling very pleased with ourselves.