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Tag Archives: Batchelor
Australia day 25 – Batchelor to Pine Creek, NT
We at the garage by 7.45am to get the van repaired, only to find that the truck picking up the spares has broken down and is having to be towed back! We pass the time having breakfast in the park opposite. Eventually we get away around 10. Back to Litchfield National Park, we stop to check the access to the various places of interest only to find most are closed; this is the tail end of the wet season and about half the sights including Wangi Falls the most popular spot in the park, are inaccessible. The only place we can get acccess is Tolmer Falls which is a spectacular waterfall tumbling several 100 feet over a sandstone escarpment into a large plunge pool below.
Having seen all we can in Litchfield we are on our way to Kakadu National Park over in the north-east Top End taking the Stuart Highway south to Pine Creek The van seems to be running smoothly now; no screeching. A further call to Wicked to complain that the van hasn’t been safety checked before it was hired out and that we suspect that it is overdue the service which was due 5000 kilometres ago. Wicked are just not interested; preventative action seems to be an anathema – but they will come out if we breakdown! Great! What a muppet outfit.
Pine Creek is at the junction of the Stuart Highway and the route into Kakadu. It’s small – population 780. The town (it’s not really a town by European standards, more like a small village) consists of an open-sided bar with swimming pool, a general store, a petrol station, three caravan parks (one of which, The Lazy Lizard, is attached to the bar), a shop selling work clothes and ‘exploration’ equipment and a cluster of houses. We are still looking for a lamp, but surprisingly have no luck here. It’s pleasant, but not as pretty as Batchelor. The Lazy Lizard with access to the pool gets our vote and we have a late afternoon dip.
Posted in Australia, Northern Territory
Tagged Australia, Batchelor, Northern Territory, Pine Creek
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Australia day 24 – Batchelor NT
Oh what a day! The battery is flat in the camper and we have to jump start it. We have an fan in the van which runs off the cigarette lighter and was assured by the man in the shop that it could be run all night from the car battery without any adverse affect. Perhaps leaving the aircon on all night as well was a step too far? Anyway we have decided to take the van into the local mechanic to get it checked as it still continues to screech intermittently. It turns out that it needs a new fan belt and a air conditioning belt, both have to be ordered for delivery late today, which means we will need to bring the van back tomorrow for repair. And that’s not all. We checked the oil last night and again this morning only to find that it is hardly registering on the dipstick. Either the van wasn’t checked and serviced before it was released for hire, or there’s a leak. The former is probably more likely given the shambles at the depot when we picked it up. The good news is that Wicked have agreed to pay for the repairs and the oil (believe it or not, they initially wanted us to pick up the cost of the latter!), the bad news is that the mechanic has advised us not to travel to Perth in it! What’s the likelihood of getting our money back, I wonder?
To cap it all the mechanic loses our hire agreemen; according to records in the van it is overdue a service; and a conversation with Wicked to complain about the state of the van is inconclusive – at the moment they’re not interested in doing anything other than covering the immediate repair. Conclusion: don’t rent from Wicked – they appear to have no compunction about sending people on a 5000 km journey across the outback in unchecked and unserviced vans that aren’t fit for purpose.
The van is drivable for the time being at least and we spend the afternoon in Litchfield National Park swimming first at Florence Falls and then at Buley Rock Pools. Florence Falls has a fabulous plunge pool surrounded by high cliffs over which tumble two falls. It’s a popular spot to cool off and there is quite a crowd by Australian outback standards. The water is wonderfully refreshing and the shallows are full of large black fish. There is a very quiet and shady alternative walk back to the car park which follows a small creek as it gurgles and tinkles through a monsoon rainforest.. Then as we climb we emerge suddenly into savannah woodland of sparsely spaced trees and thick tall grass.
Buley Falls is much less crowded and all the better for it. Not as dramatic in terms of height; a small creek cascades over angular sandstone ledgess into a series of deep pools which are perfect for swimming and just cooling down.
Posted in Australia, Northern Territory
Tagged Australia, Batchelor, Northern Territory
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Australia day 23 – Darwin to Batchelor
We finally leave Darwin behind and after doing a bit more shopping to finish kitting out the van and we are off to Litchfield National Park. The road is straight and the landscape flat. There are a couple of small bush fires along the roadside; one serious enough to have the emergency services in attendance. This is the country of the massive road trains; enormous lorries hauling three or four trailers and they take no prisoners – apparently stopping for nothing and no-one as they hurtle along the highway.
Batchelor, just off the Stuart Highway (the road that runs from Darwin through Alice to Adelaide), is a small township in a parkland setting. There are a few houses, a general store-cum-post office, a pub and Aboriginal art centre. We stop here for the night – tomorrow the national park.
The campsite has a bird feeding sessions in the evening and early morning. It attracts scores of exotic and colourful birds including rainbow lorikeets, which it’s possible to view from close quarters. After dark the frogs and toads come out; some quite enormous!
Posted in Australia, Northern Territory
Tagged Australia, Batchelor, Darwin, Northern Territory
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