We had intended to take a few days to Darwin then on a closer look at the maps and places of interest came to the conclusion that we would be better off going right on through to Darwin, basing there
and taking day trips out to the closer areas, getting the info required for Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks then visiting these on the return to Katherine before
turning westward to Karatha and the west coast sometime in July.
We took about 4 hours to do the 324 kilometres to Darwin, taking in the sights along the way and stopping for smoko at Bridge Creek rest area (Camps #106).
One thing that we have found out about caravan parks over the years is that they are not all listed
in the publications that we all reach for when looking for a suitable place to stay. Depending on the size of the town there is usually one or two that are not listed. In the smaller towns these can be found by looking out for signs on the highway or
by doing a quick drive around. In the larger towns finding the main info centre is the best bet, they have a list of all the places where one can park for just one night of several weeks, pet friendly and un-friendly.
Our usual plan of attack is to head straight to the
info centre and get a list of all the van parks and in particular the pet friendly ones. Coming into Darwin we start looking for the well known i sign and the few that we found were directing traffic to roadside areas where a static display in a rain shelter
housed a bunch of ads for local businesess, not what we were looking for.
Continuing along the Stuart Highway looking for a sign to the i we eventualy find ourselves, as ususal in the CBD with a 21' caravan hanging on the back. Great where to now? I'm glad
this is Darwin and not Sydney and that is also Sunday.
After parking the Supertramp we find a tourist tour booking place in town that kindly gives us the info we are after and directions to the Lee Point CP where we have been told we might get in with the dog.
They don't
advertise that they allow dogs, it's a matter of turn up and ask. So we turn up at Lee Point and do just that, looks like a very nice park but with a dog you can't go into the main park and they offer us a spot in "The Compound". We take it for 1 week, big mistake and before the week is out we are outa there
and move to KOA, a sister park owned and run by the same company and built along the same lines as Lee Point. KOA has a designated dog section and our fees paid at Lee Point just transfered to KOA.
It's a small world, as we drive around looking for a site, we could pick from
any vacant sites in the dog section who had just arrived from Katherine but John and Val and as it turned out the site we selected was next to them.
This page concludes our Autumn 2007 leg to Darwin. We will stay here until July 1, see Darwin and what it has to offer and prepare the
rig for the next leg when we will visit Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks before heading west to the Kimberly and ultimately the west coast.
