Ryan’s Journal: Days 26 - 33

Day 26

Distance travelled: 65km

Our morning was OK, but Nick, Jackson and I knew that we had a 12km hike in front of us. Mum, Nick, Jackson and I walked a part of the Larapinta trail from Glen Helen to Ormiston Gorge. It was so long! While we hiked threw the mountains, Dad drove around and set up camp, and had a nap! How lazy! We made it to the halfway point, a hilltop lookout which had an amazing view. We met Dad about 10 minutes from the end, when he decided he would try to find us. We finished at a nice campsite close to the gorge. The rest of the afternoon was spent resting and sleeping, especially Dad...

Day 27

Distance travelled: 0 km.

We woke to a cold morning and Dad, having lots of energy wanted to do a 10km pound walk that included a freezing river crossing at the end. Yeah right! We won the argument and somehow Dad managed to get us up the ‘Ghost Gum’ walk. It was pretty good. A lookout from the top of the gorge was magnificent! We could see a dingo having a drink in the gorge, which was cool. We finished our walk and went back to the camp where we spent the rest of the time doing nothing much. We did have pancakes for lunch which was great!

Day 28

Distance travelled: 178km

We left Orminston for a short drive (by our standards) to Alice Springs. We stopped a lot on the way, first at Ochre Pits, where the aboriginals mined ochre which they used for paint, next at another gorge, Serpentine gorge. That was pretty cool, it was really big and had lots of water! Then, at yet another gorge, Stanley Chasm, which was really narrow. Then, finally at Alice! We decided to wash some clothes so we stopped at a Laundromat to do that. We then went to where we would camp, in the backyard of Katie and Nick Harder’s house. It was great having access to a house again! We spent the rest of the day making full use of the couches!

Day 29

Distance travelled: 84km

We were still in Alice, and decided to do all the touristy things, so we visited the Telegraph station, AIM hospital, Todd Mall and John Flynn’s grave. Todd Mall was great. It had many different shops and a few aboriginal art galleries. We went out for dinner with Kate and Nick to a cool place called Montes. It was a unique place with many different things hanging on the roof, form Barbie dolls to Japanese masks. The food was also very good!

Day 30

Distance travelled: 54km (by car)

We were packing up, all excited about our next trip. We were going on the Ghan, 29 huge carriages long. We organised the car to be put on the Ghan and had some time to kill, so we went back to Montes and had a drink. When we finally were allowed on the Ghan, it was 5:15pm. We settled in to our seats for the next 24 hours. It departed at 6.

The night was long, I didn’t get much sleep. Eventually I gave up and played on my IPad.

Day 31

Distance travelled: 31 km (1420km on train)

We stopped in Katherine at about 9, so it was breakfast time, and, we went to a local café. We all had some form of bacon and eggs but Jackson scored the most when he got a huge amount of bacon and a couple of eggs.

We had to get back to the train so we caught a taxi back to the station. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we all were tired and bored. When we did make it to Darwin it was so hot! We packed up and got off the train, and then waited for the car to be taken off the train.

We went to Allan and Jude’s house, our home for the next three nights. We set up inside their unit. For the first time in a month we had a TV to use, so we watched the footy!

Day 32

Distance travelled: 121km

We were in Darwin, a city! We also had some people we wanted to catch up with, so that’s what most of the day consisted of. We had breakfast at a place called The Groove. There we ate with our auntie, Di. We sat outside because, at eight-thirty, in the morning, it was already about twenty-five degrees!

After our trouble with tyres around Birdsville, Dad decided to get new ones. So, we went to the tyre place that Di had organised for us and got four new tyres on the car. So, with new tyres on the car, we went into the city. It was small, but great! We went for a walk around and saw Government House and all that political stuff. We went to a few lookouts of the beautiful ocean and saw lots of memorials for both Cyclone Tracy and the bombing on Darwin in WW2. So, continuing with all the touristy stuff, we went to a museum to look mainly at the Cyclone Tracy exhibit. It was big! It had lots of photos, before and after shots of the cyclone, a sound room that had a replica of the noise made by Tracy. It was so loud it was scary.

Then, continuing on with our catching up with people day, we went to a caravan park to catch up with one of mum’s friends Ros, and her husband Max. We had a great time, while mum and dad chatted away us kids had a swim. It was lots of fun!!! It had reached thirty plus degrees, and we were boiling, so the swim did us good. We were on a tight schedule so we left and went to a barbeque area where we met up with Di again, and her friend Viv, Colin and Merran and Alan and Jude. We had a great BBQ on the beach! After tea we had to be quick to get back to Colin and Merran’s place to watch the footy. Unfortunately St Kilda didn’t win.

Day 33

Distance travelled: 337km

We were woken early because we were going out to Litchfield. Other that being woken early it was my favourite day on the trip so far. Our first stop was at the magnetic termite mounds. They were huge! And they’re named ‘Magnetic’ because they all point the same way. Our next stop was at Florence Falls. We spent about an hour in the plunge pool there, swimming above the untouchable pool floor. We went under the waterfall, it felt like hail! But we had to get out, because there were more places to go to.

Buley Rock Holes was next. It was a shallow river with occasional drops which made a small waterfall. The great thing about this place was on just about every level of river there was a really deep bit. A really, really deep bit. We were allowed to jump off rocks here, so we jumped off the highest rock (which wasn’t very high) into a big hole. We were thinking about spending the rest of the day there because it was so nice, but again, decided to move on to Wangi Falls.

Wangi Falls was huge! It was the biggest plunge pool we went to. The water was colder though, but it didn’t stop us. We went under the waterfall again, although it wasn’t as strong as the last one, it was still cool. We also found a small pool a little way up on the rocks where the water was really warm. Again we could have spent the whole day there, but we moved on to Walkers Creek.

We knew there was a walk into the plunge pool at Walkers Creek, but didn’t know the exact distance. We didn’t go all the way, it was too far. But we did something else. We were able to get into the creek, which was very big for a creek, and all of us but mum waded down the creek. It was a mistake. The rocks were really slippery, so we couldn’t walk, the water wasn’t very deep, so we couldn’t swim and there were so many rocks. We did find a way that worked but we still got scratched and bruised by the rocks. All the way we were trying to find out whose stupid idea it was to do that, but when we finally made it, mum was standing on a little bridge. Her first question was “How was it?” We all replied a bit negatively, it was fun, but hard, and painful. Our first question was to settle an argument, “whose idea was this?” Mum answered, all dry and not hurt, “mine!!!!”! So we all trudged back to the car where we finished our day trip and went back to Darwin.

We had one more thing to do. The Mindi market. It’s a big market that has everything. It’s at dusk by the beach. At sunset, everyone goes down to the beach to watch the sun go down, and then, sometimes, they clap!! So we met up with Dad’s friends Mary and John and watched the beautiful sunset. The market was great, it was so big! It had everything, so we got dinner, and browsed through the busy aisles of the market stalls.