When we planned this portion of the trip, we thought Adelaide River was another jumping off point for bushwalking in Litchfield Park. However, while it is adjacent to the southern portion of the park, there are no developed trails in the area. So, it turned out to be a lovely, two day oasis at a still-functioning cattle station. It was perfect!
They had all sorts of animals – water buffalo, peacocks,
horses, cows, and a dog. and the place was absolutely overrun with Agile
Wallabies! such a great sendoff. We lazied around and took walks, hoping to see
some Salties in the river, or Freshies in the billabong. But we saw neither – I
suppose that’s better than seeing one too close for comfort. The rest of the
time we spent being lazy at the pool and talking to our housemates – an older
couple from an agricultural area in NSW. As we walked around, wallabies were constantly boinging away
– there must have been thousands!
Oh! I nearly forgot the Curloo! These birds
started singing their sad ghostly songs at dusk. Eerie, but also beautiful. But
late in the night, the forlorn song turns into a higher pitched scream and
several birds scream back and forth and at the same time, sounding like a
village of women getting slaughtered. They do this for a minute or so, then
quiet down for fifteen minutes or a half hour, then start all over again.
Luckily they don’t keep it up all night because it was quite disturbing and
nearly impossible to sleep through.
The second night, we had a little visitor in our bathroom –
a rather large Green Tree Frog. I opened the seat of the toilet and screeched,
jumping backward a mile. I immediately started laughing and called Charles in
as I went to the other stall, nearly wetting myself. J We had no idea whether
he had come up through the pipes or had somehow gotten the lid open to get in
and we had to decide what to do. We figured he had probably, though
disturbingly, come up through the pipes, and since we didn’t know whether he
was poisonous or not, we thought it would be best to shut the lid. Later that
night, I went to use the other stall, opened the lid, screamed once again as we
found our friend had somehow transferred toilets and was sitting on the seat
under the lid just staring down into the bowl! Eww…he must have been able to go
through the pipes to the other toilet. And of course now I was afraid to sit
down for fear of a surprise attack from below. I once again, between fits of
laughter, called Charles in. I lifted the lid and he was gone! We never saw him
again, but wondered where he went…whether he got sucked in with river water or
was there by choice?
We took our time leaving this dusty place and went into
Darwin to find some Kangaroo steak before leaving Oz. Darwin is strangely shiny
and cosmopolitan. We expected it to be a bit more relaxed and perhaps rough
around the edges, but those going to work were dressed much like New Yorkers –
mainly in black, grey and white, and very stylish. The area was bombed during
WWII and was later nearly completely wiped out by a hurricane a few decades
ago. Over 11,000 homes were destroyed, leaving only 400 standing. The result is
that it very much felt like a planned city without anything organic about it.
Also, maybe because it caters so much to tourists, we couldn’t find a kangaroo
steak anywhere. The one place we knew of was closed for lunch, so we settled
for a kangaroo burger and a spinach salad with kangaroo steak, beets, pine
nuts, feta and olives. Yum. Everything was delicious – the burger was amazingly
spiced and the combination of flavors on the salad perfectly accented each
other. The meat itself basically tasted like a really tender beef – perhaps
just a bit gamier.
Then we were off to return the car at the airport and make
our grand exit from Oz (by almost missing our plane). With that, we were off to
Singapore!
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