We have taken leave of absence from our grandchild minding duties for the weekend and have travelled down to Lichfield national park. We spent the night in the national park camp at Wangi Falls after a swim in the rather refreshing plunge pool at the foot of the falls. The falls themselves are rather speccie even though they are not at their best. My morning walks made a start at each side of the, so called circuit, so it was a good work out up steep hills through the monsoon forrest. We then went and had a look at the cascades situated in a small but pretty gorge. The noise as we approached the cascades was enormous, band music because the neighbouring property was hosting an all night party and judging by the mess it was a huge success. The next stop was Walker Creek another place with, like the other spots, crystal clear water and another walk for me. Heading home today we decided to tackle the 31 km of unsealed road as a trial for the future, it was an abject failure and we will not be doing any more unsealed roads!  After the difficulty of the corrugated gravel road a swim at Berry Springs before heading back to Shayde, Russell, Acacia and Zimra.

Standby I am about to do some philosophising! During our boat travels we saw lots of grey nomads and others on the road. Before we left home I read some where that there were some 37000 caravans or similar registered, the reality is somewhat different to both observations although I suspect the overall numbers are even greater.

Firstly the people.....there are grey nomads, families with young kids, young couples, so called backpackers, tourists of all brands and just couples. Some are doing the big lap, some just extended journeys and some moving quickly to see as much as possible in their holiday break. There are some travelling to specific events, maybe family maybe group activities maybe local shows etc. One such group was part of the 2500 strong multitude that attended the Ulysses Club (motor bile riders from 40yo upwards) agm at Alice Springs, we saw them riding in groups eastwards on the Barklely Hwy. we have met a few people who are full time on the road like the gypsies of old, some have sold there houses some have kept a house and use the rent to   the trip. In fact a many coloured and varied complete cross section of the world community and all possible land based travel activities.

Then come the mobile residences......buses large and small some with basic amateur fit outs some with luxurious professional fit outs. Then motorhomes of various sizes, camper vans, utes with all you could possibly need built some with beds and some with tents or fold out sleeping ares. Then caravans in all sorts of configurations and sizes towed in the main by 4wd vehicles, some of these tow vehicles set up with every that you could possibly need in years of touring. Then there are camper trailers and what we call campers caravans that fold up to almost nothing then fold out to quite usable caravans. Then we have vehicles with tents and motor cyclists and to really get minimilistic cyclists. So far we have not come across anyone on foot, but I am sure there are some out there.

The next part of this mix is the accomodation......caravan parks which come in all sorts of forms and shapes. Some are very expensive some less so, but to anyone who is undertaking an extensive trip every $10 (and none are that cheap) is another $300 per month out of the budget. Some caravan park are nicely set up with grassed areas and shade, others just a space to park the variation not dependent on price. All caravan parks have full facilities, but squeeze as many people onto there site as possible, usually just enough space for caravan, car and 2 chairs outside the van. There have only been one or two exceptions to the sardine principle. National parks so far very good, the cost is reasonable, the facilities basic (mostly ablutions and built in bbqs). Free camps are of course just somewhere to camp overnight, although most of these are officially sanctioned and have rubbish bins and sometimes ablutions. A lot of the free camps (we do this as much as we can) are very nice places in the open bush or alongside rivers or lakes and are the best places to meet people.

Overall the passing parade is absolutely fascinating, a more skilled reporter could build a lot more into my description, but you will have to put up with it. Hopefully it is not too long and boring. I will launch into the magnificent variety of countryside that we are seeing at some later date.

It is 1 full week since my last report, all is well and we are still in Darwin having survived the first week of the school holidays. Up here in the top end this term break is four weeks and since we are to be here for the kids birthdays we will be minding our grandchildren for most of that time. Elaine arrived back last Monday so it is the 2 of us running the tag team, luckily because she is much better with the kids than I am. Shayde runs a series of children's program's during the holidays and has booked the kids in for those that are suitable and this is a great help. However the week has been spent finding activities such as parks to keep the little darlings occupied. They really behave well and we are enjoying the interaction, but it is tiring. That's it for now I am glad Elaine is back and for those in southern states the weather is lovely and warm (read hot) up here. 

OK I know it is over a week since I last reported in, but not to worry all is fine. Elaine has gone down to Perth to visit the rest of our lovely family and to spend time with 2 little granddaughters. She actually left last Friday but I was not allowed to report as it was to be a surprise. Thesirise was successful, only a couple of people knew she was coming. One was our good friend Karen who has been kind enough to provide accomodation. Elaine has also caught up her brother, my brother, Lil & Harry and Jan & Mike (our sailing friends now occupying the pen next to Eaglehearts) amongst others. The other big thing was that she was in town for 2 very important birthdays - Lyla & Jax. However she will be back, hopefully, on Monday. 

In the meantime I have been busy doing little jobs. More important than them though was that I have had the pleasure of attending sports day and end of term assembly for Acacia and Zimra. 

We will be here for a few weeks enjoying our grandchildren and their parents for a few weeks during school holidays. Then shortly after we leave they will be moving to Perth for good.....Hooray. 

We are now in Darwin enjoying our grandchildren, Acacia & Zimmy, and their parents Shayde & Russell. We drove up yesterday and are parked on the street in front of their house. We are working on finding a way of parking inside their property, the difficulty is the steepness of the driveway and our vans ability to mount it without scraping its backside on the ground. Other than that we have done a bit of shopping today, trying to sort out a couple telstra issues, does that sound familiar to anyone?

This is going to be a 2 or 3 day blog, maybe even 4 days.

Wednesday we drove back up to Adelaide River, going to have a look at the war cemetery before booking in to the caravan park for the night. The war cemetery is extremely well set and well tended, lush grass, lovely trees and impressive, but not overly large, monuments  it houses about 300 graves and has élan story plaques covering the story of Adelaide River's involvement in ww11. As you can see we wereimpressed and this is not the sort of thing we normally look at.

The caravan parkways quote nice, complete with pool and another couple of solo ladies. We have now parted company with Tom & Laureen who are heading south and want to be home in a Dalby by mid July. We can however count them as friends and hope to catch up somewhere also the track..........that is part of the pleasures of this sort of trip.

Today, Thursday, we have driven back to Robin Falls after catching up with phone calls, etc. This really is a little piece of paradise, we have camped in a slightly different position to
last time being a little closer to the main road, but so far we have to concentrate to hear the small amount of traffic that it carries. The clear stream is just 10 paces from our door, birds noises and the rippling water are the only noise we hear.

It is evening now and we are both relaxing after a great meal. E manages to make some culinary masterpieces under fairly difficult conditions. Tonight was proper chicken soup and a magnificent tuna bake cooked on the BBQ definitely a great meal!

Friday, we are still here at Robin Falls and will probably spend a few days here before going back to Darwin on Tuesday or Wednesday. We did however shift to a better spot close to one of the mini waterfalls, man made, that are a feature here. After a very relaxing day swimming and doing very little we joined our neighbours for happy hour. One of the nice things about free camps like this is that you meet nice people, more so than you do in formal caravan parks. Anyway after happy hour Elaine made one of her famous fires and we had another nice meal.

It is now Saturday and we have shifted again this time with a 'private' pool next to the van and our own little waterfall. This morning I took my mobile with me on my walk and received & sent a few messages. Then we spent another difficult day doing nothing in particular, other than another short walk, this time with Elaine. The fire is now preparing to cook dinner again after a bit of input from yours truly making a really nice fire pit etc.

I will now try to describe this place. We drove just 12km south west from Adelaide a River on a reasonable sealed road then turned off onto a gravel, rather bumpy but not to bad, road for 500m. Robin Falls is about another 500m from the end of road over a very rocky twisty turny path. It is fairly small in width and about 30m high with a half way swimming pool and another at the foot of the fall. The narrow, about 4 to 5 mtrs, stream then winds it's way back to and under the main road. On the way there are lots of little man made rock walls creating mini waterfalls which are like sitting in a spa, together with lots of swimming spots that are relatively shallow. The whole thing is surrounded by small individual hills all about the same 40mtrs high and the area is covered with nice tall green trees of various genres and grasses. The only disappointment is the lack extensive wildlife. There I hope that I have covered this lovely place adequately.

It is now Monday and we are still out of range at Robin Falls. Yesterday was spent enjoying our surroundings and doing a few jobs. Elaine washed our sheets in the stream at the little man made waterfall then finished that job this morning. We are having to run the generator every day when we are camped like this, when we are moving the batteries charge as we drive, so solar panels are on the list when we get home. We get surprised when people arrive as one couple did last night, set up there camper ( in this case car top) then cook dinner go to sleep and take off again straight after breakfast this morning. In some cases they are just on the move, but they don't get a chance to enjoy the place, we see this at a lot of the sites that we visit, anyway I guess each to his own.

Ok so Sunday dawned, Tom was all fired up so we said our goodbyes and took off heading south. First stop the Bridge Rest Area 33km south of Adelaide River. This is a nice little next to but hidden from a small river that only houses a small number of vans. Like any good camping spot it filled up during the afternoon with about 10 vans, 1 camper trailer and 1 cyclist. The camper trailer parked almost on top of the cyclist but nobody seemed to mind. So the afternoon was spent chatting to the cyclist, the camper trailer people and towards the end of the day 2 solo ladies in motorhomes.

The next day we took off again heading north to Adelaide River the 12km southwest to Robin Falls. This turned out to be a little bit of paradise, very few vans but lots of visitors to do to walk up to the falls. We were parked in the last spot before the path to the falls, our girlfriends from the previous night one spot back. So we all enjoyed the, very difficult, walk to the falls followed by a very refreshing swim in the cool clear water of the stream. Elaine did the walk which was great!

Then came yesterday and we left the falls, parted company with Tom & Laureen and headed into Adelaide River again. We planned to go to Douglas-Daly but the road to our selected destination was unsealed so we went back to the Stuart Hwy and spent the night at Hayes Creek C/Park.