Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Hanging with Julia!

 
Look who we rubbed shoulders with this morning! Australia's Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard.

She is up this way doing a two day whirlwind tour. We couldn't miss the opportunity to go down to the local park this morning, watch her plant a tree and say hello. I helped the girls make a quick sign to attract her attention and it worked! Half way through the planting, her media man came over and asked if she had seen the sign Grace was holding. I said she had made eye contact and he said he would make sure she came and said hello. She was very friendly, shook the girls hands and asked them their names. I took the first photo and then she suggested that maybe I would like to be in the next shot. All very exciting!

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Ahoy Captain!

 
Look! I have a piece of paper that says I can drive a boat now!
Daz now has to share the boat when we take it out!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Lovely Litchfield.

 
School holidays here and we decided to visit Litchfield Park across the border in the Northern Territory. All our previous trips to Darwin have just been a rush to get to the shops and movies but this trip we decided to meet up with Darren's folks in the sleepy hollow that is Batchelor, make that our base and do a mix of Litchfield sights and shopping! Above is Wangi Falls. So nice we visited it twice! The water was crystal clear.

  
Tolmer Falls was seen from the viewing platform as see that little black hole at the bottom of the falls? Home to several colonies of rare Ghost Bats and Orange Horseshoe Bats apparantly.

Our favourite spot though was a place called Buley Rockhole. A series of waterfalls and rock-holes were you could wander down away from everyone else and find your own little pool. Which was good cause guess who forgot to pack their bathers??! It was cold when we left Kununurra! Didn't think we'd be swimming in the dry season!

Just had to include this photo. Now we know were the girls and Daz get their camera face from!

The other big attraction at Litchfield is Florence Falls. It was very busy here.

The park is also famous for these Magnetic Termite Mounds. The mounds are aligned north to south to minimise the exposure to the sun.

In typical Aussie fashion, we had to take the shots of child trying to push over giant termite mound.

 
And also the shot of the whole family in front of the termite mound.

We also visited Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin.

They had a great reptile display, including this water monitor that was itching to get out of his enclosure.

And lots and lots of crocodiles including this one who was the same length as our boat, 4.9 metres!