Melons, fridge panic and flowing water

When we left the Douglas Daly Tourist Park we went exploring further south, even though the road is a dead-end, as that’s where we’d seen road trains coming from laden with cattle, hay and melons. It was also where the irrigation boys we’d met had laid out piping for 1200 acres of sandalwood.

Tiny sandalwood trees, and the host trees which their roots
 parasitise, as far as we could see.
 

Sure enough, we found those new plantations, stretching as far as we could see; also cattle stations, and those growing grass for hay, with all the road fences protected against wallabies with mesh wire into the ground.

Melon-harvesting was under way, and we had been told the season was almost over, with the owner of that vast growing area about to go to his other melon farm in Oakey, Queensland. 

The last of the melon harvest.

We then took a different road to the famous old Daly River Crossing, a low-level number now replaced with a high-level bridge. Just outside that little settlement (just a police station, a pub and a few houses, but crawling with barramundi fishermen when the fish are biting), there are a number of fishermen’s camps, retreats and tourist parks.

We chose Wooliana on the Daly, as far downstream as we could get, but still 78km from the sea. From there on it’s pretty wild country and the river anywhere is full of salties.

The almost-empty Wooliana caravan park.

This was a pretty place to stay as the owner keeps the grass well-watered, it had a lovely little swimming pool, and in contrast to being full every June, July and August, with those 3 months already booked out next year, there were just three couples staying there . . . and one came from Ballina!

When we stopped for morning tea on our way back to the highway, I found the fridge seemed to be de-frosting, had a light on, but the motor was not going. By the time we reached Adelaide River on the highway, we were at minor panic stations as this was the fridge that had had a complete new unit installed early this year.

John phoned an Engel repair place in Darwin, I phoned Lyn Barlow to say we’d be with them that day, instead of several days later, we bought ice and put it in the fridge crisper, transferring the big slab of melon we’d had there to the sink, and we lead-footed it to Darwin, only an hour or so away.

We called at the Engel repair place, and the bloke was more interested in telling us what costs would be than what might be wrong. John told him he’d have to un-build the fridge from the cabinet and would bring it back the next day and off we went to a warm welcome from the Barlows.

After coffee and much chat we were about to transfer our ice and the fridge contents into a borrowed esky . . . and we found the fridge was working again! We monitored it through the night and it behaved perfectly.  John called a national Engel service centre the next morning and was told the compressor may have turned itself off because the fridge was over-iced. We HAD turned it well down to cope with the large slab of hot melon we’d put in a day or so earlier and had not returned the temp to normal so that seemed perfectly feasible. And if we hadn’t shoved a big bag of ice in at Adelaide River, it probably would have started working earlier.

Anyway . . . after lunch that day, we drove back south to resume our journey as we wanted to find the WWII airfield where one of John’s uncles had served, as well as spend some time in Litchfield National Park.

Not a graveyard but magnetic termite mounds, built north-south.

His Uncle Joffre had been at Coomalie Creek where now there is a tourist park of sorts, so we pulled in there. There was power, so we could run the air-con (an essential as the days and nights get hotter). Late in the afternoon when the owner returned from Darwin and heard of our interest, he piled us into his all-terrain vehicle, a Ranger, told John to grab a beer, took 2 for himself, and we set off on a mad drive across the highway and up a steep and rocky hillside, with him pointing out various remains of wartime buildings, hurtling upwards and sideways, occasionally thrusting his beer can at me to hold when he really needed two hands on the wheel. Halfway through he switched to the second can and we hurtled down the hill, across the highway again (no road trains, thank goodness) and we explored his place. He gave us some wartime history books to read and gave us the name and phone number of the man who owns the property on which the old airfield is situated and where a chapel built during the war has been re-created.

We did try to call the next morning, but no response, so we continued to explore Adelaide River and its historic railway precinct before turning north again to enter Litchfield Park.

We’ve had two great days here, staying at a park on the western side, which once again has power so we can cope with the hot nights. This morning we left at 8am and were at the Buley Rockholes near the eastern side of the park by 8.30am to be the first people swimming in those glorious pools.

The glorious Buley Rockholes.

By the time we left around 9.30 the tour groups and individuals were starting to arrive.

Wangi Falls, still flowing at the end of the
 dry season.

We also swam at Wangi Falls close to noon, and then sensibly returned to our park for lunch and to turn on the essential cooling system. We’ve walked to lookouts, but not to the bottom of Florence Falls (too hot) and there are several 4WD areas we’ve promised ourselves we’ll explore in the Jimny next time we come to the Top End, probably soon after the Wet ends, maybe in 2016.

 

We’ll bring the trailer then, with the little Jimny on it, and stick to bitumen all the way. There was no way we were going to trail it this time, with all the dirt roads we planned to negotiate.

So now we may spend one more day and night somewhere on the way back to Darwin, or we may just go straight there, but that will be where I probably will next get enough phone reception to post this blog.