Author: stragglingstu

Getting a bit toe-y now as the end of the trip gets closer. Up and off across the tableland to the Tolmer Falls lookout. The falls and gorge are home to endangered bats so no entry but an interesting enough …

Restocked at the town shop and the better provisioned service station we headed off to the Litchfield National Park. The joke in Batchelor is that Litchfield is a much better but less known park than Kakadu, which has so many …

A short 15 kms or so over grey clay flood plains and then up a lovely rain-foresty track alongside a small stream and onto the Stuart Highway. Bitumen again!

A fast (for Brian, Christine and Chris O’B, slow for me) …

Almost immediately after leaving camp we passed the turnoff for the Jim Jim Road (my friend Paula remembers it well, she met her husband-to-be on a bus tour there).

Then it was passed the Paper Bark caravan park (closed) and …

A relaxed start to the morning after being kept awake until late by the partying group tour in the segregated part of the campground next door, followed by being roused early in the morning (before 6 am) by said group …

Back on the bikes and an easy ride up to the mining township of Jabiru. A good supermarket but the town is obviously looking for a reason to be since the uranium mine closed. A quiet night in the caravan …

The title sums it up.

Get up earlier than one would like on a rest day to be able to catch the 8 am boat tour. While queuing to board the flat-bottomed boat an unlucky punter dropped their mobile phone …

Up before daylight to the sounds of Brian stoking the fire. I finally made a damper and cooked it in the ashes before we headed off to Cooinda Resort.

As always the ride back out along the rubbish dirt road …

A casual enough start to the day but still beat the last of the party goers out of camp. Have sympathy for parents trying to round up teenage girls. Bounced back over the rocky road and straight up the Arnhem …

Packed up as usual and headed off, soon turning east onto the Kakadu Highway.

A nice little tailwind pushed us over the first half of the ride to the Mary River Roadhouse. Unfortunately the second half of the ride was …

Good-bye to brother Peter and Rob in the morning. They headed off to get the Toyota’s fuel line cleaned before heading home to Longreach via the Boroloola Road that we had just come up. At the end it turned out …

After some discussion about where to put the tents (a long term resident at the Kway Crossing Resort said ‘not too close to the fence because the locals on the way home from the pub hop over said fence to …

Well folks, the Cairns to Darwin Intrepid’eans made it through nearly 4000 km including 1460 km of often rough, dusty, stony but mostly corrugated roads to Darwin.

Elapsed time was 65 days.

STRAGGLINGSTU at the end in Darwin

Outstanding contributor …

DAY 47 X AUGUST MATARANKA TO KATHERINE

Pushing on to Katherine today. My brother had decided to go up to Katherine to see the gorges and spend another day with. me without upsetting the other riders by insisting on another …