Day 3 (afternoon) Katherine

The train left Darwin mid-morning and rolled into Katherine early afternoon. The "whistle-stop" tour we've chosen is the "Cake and Coffee Cruise" - no walking on uneven surfaces (for Paul's ankle).

Katherine Gorge is actually a network of many gorges, but with the limited time for the Ghan stop-over this cruise is only on the first of the gorges.


Gorgeous, isn't it? (Sorry).

These are Pandeus Palms. There's a similar variety that we saw in Litchifield National Park on the previous day.


I loved the tenacity of this tree. That regardless of how solid and hard the rock walls of the gorges are this tree's roots have managed to seek out little crevices with enough sustenance to survive and even thrive.


At the end of the gorge is a gallery of aboriginal rock art that has survived under a rock ledge. Our tour leader - Russell - is a young Jayowyn man and was able to explain the stories that the art depict.

After returning to the boat he also showed us his prowess on the didgeridoo.



Then the boat continued back to it's starting point. On the way back we saw a freshwater crocodile on one of the beaches, but didn't manage to get a reasonable photo of it.

Katherine Gorge (or gorges) are in Nitmiluk National Park - the Jayowyn name for this area - it means home of the Cicada.

The bus back to the train diverted along the main street of Katherine so we could see the local town. The bus driver pointed out that when the Katherine River flooded that the waters reached the canopies of the shops in the main street!

Day 3 (morning) - The Ghan

Wednesday - the day the Ghan adventure begins. It started with a curious case of class hierachy. After we checked out of the Holiday Inn Esplanade we had to wheel and lug our luggage "next door" to the Holiday Inn Darwin to catch our bus to meet the Ghan. When the bus finally arrived and collected its passengers and luggage it drove back along the Esplande and past "our" hotel where there was another Ghan bus collecting the "Gold" and "Red" class passengers - we were travelling "Platinum".

When the bus approached the railway station (built outside Darwin) it stopped so we could take this picture - the Ghan with the Darwin skyline beyond.

The train - all three quarters of a kilometer (725 metres) or 28 carriages. This shot and the following one are taken from the same spot, looking towards the end and the front of the train.

And a shot of the engine. In fact, there are two engines until the train gets to Alice Springs because there's not too many bits of double-track on the new bit of track between Alice and Darwin, so they need two engines to protect against one breaking down in a spot that's inaccessible. The extra engine is de-coupled in Alice Springs to return with the next Ghan heading to Darwin. (It runs two northbound and two southbound trains per week).

The inside of our cabin. The bit with the two seats folds down to make the bed (not that we actually did the folding down) - more on that later. And the little desk/table also folds down out of the way.

The cabin has a full (though compact) bathroom with standard sized shower and toilt (more on that later too).

There's not a lot of storage space, and we followed the recommendation to take an overnight bag each on board and checked our suitcase through to Adelaide.

Next post I'll cover the afternoon - our "whistle-stop" for Day 1 is Katherine.

Day 2 - Litchfield National Park

Another early start to get breakfast before meeting the tour bus for the trip to Litchfield National Park.
First stop inside the park was at this Cathedral Termite Hill. The name comes from the sheer size of the termite hills, and the butress formations.

















Then some more termite hills -these are called magnetic termite hills because they are built aligned to an East-West axis. Scientists think this minimises exposure to the sun to keep the termite hill as cool as possible, though they don't know how the termites can read directions.

Then, on to the first of the beautiful waterfalls in Litchfield NP - this is Florence Falls. The walk down is lots of stairs. Fortunately there's a gentle (though longer) walk back through the forest to get back to the car park.

After lunch, on to more waterfalls - this one is Wangi Falls. It has a great and very accessible swimming hole beneath the falls, but it was closed for swimming as this was the end of the wet season so the water was still quite high. This leads to two public risks - the first is the strength of the water and the risk of getting caught under the flow of the falls and not being able to surface. And the second is the risk of salt-water crocodiles getting into the water system while the water is high.

And one last waterfall before we headed back to Darwin - this is Tolmer Falls, and is quite spectacular. The viewing platform for this one is quite high so you look down on the crystal clear green pool below the falls.

Day 1 - Darwin

This is the first post of a series to chronicle Paul's and my special 25th anniversary holiday and to show some of the photos we took.



Day 1 we were up VERY early (4am) to catch a flight from Melbourne to Adelaide, then Adelaide to Darwin. The benefit of starting so early is that we were at the hotel by early afternoon.
The package included the hotel - not just a room but a suite - a living room (with powder room) and a bedroom with en-suite that included both a shower and a bath. Very nice.
#1 job was to get a camera - we'd managed to forget Paul's good camera! - so we strolled along Darwin's main street - Mitchell Street and found a camera and a coffee shop (competitive research for Paul).
Also included in the package was a dinner cruise on Darwin Harbour on the Alfred Nobel.


The cruise started in daylight, so I was able to get a few photos of Darwin landmarks. This is Darwin's Parliament House. They've only had self-government for a relatively short period of time, so this is quite a new bulding. I think it's supposed to reflect some of Darwin's Asian heritage. (However the bus driver told us it's affectionately called "The Wedding Cake", not because of it's pastel colouring but because it's full of nuts and fruit soaked in alcohol).


Also on the harbour, next to Parliament House, is Government House.

From what was visible beyond the beautiful tropical gardens, it looks like a lovely place to live, and certainly has great views of the harbour.

This is our hotel from the harbour - Holiday Inn, Esplanade Darwin. Our suite was on the top floor, so had a good view of the harbour.

The boat also cruised by the Naval facility where the patrol boats live. There were several in port including Ararat and Armidale. (I wonder if they are all named after Australian towns and cities that start with "A"?)

These are the boats that look for illegal fishermen and illegal immigrants on Australia's northern coastline.

When it got dark (quite quickly, being closer to the equator) there was a thunderstorm - lots of spectacular lightening, but not too close and without any rain. It was end of April, and getting towards the end of "the wet" but still humid.

The food was a taste of "the Territory" and it's eclectic ethnic heritage - starter of chicken satay, then entree of prawns and oysters, main course of local beef (steak) and barramundi, and tropical fruit for dessert.

My First Post

My current project is a series of small quilts for my work cubicle. Each quilt is approximately 60cm (24") square and so far all follow the same format - a central print panel, a narrow framing border and a wider outer border. The inner print panel is machine embroidered to accentuate the print design, and the outer border is finished with a feathered quilting border design.

Paint Box Flowers


The outer border quilting is the same undulating feathered border as the other two, but enhanced with additional quilting within each loop of the feather and an echo line outside. (This is the most recent of the quilts - Blogger seems to load the pictures in reverse order). The centre panel is simply quilted with outline quilting in black on all the design lines.

Gerberas


The centre panel of this quilt has been heavily embellished with lots of free-hand quilting following the design lines of the three different coloured flowers. I think this is why the edges of the quilt don't sit flat. The outer border quilting is done in a contrasting orange thread so it shows up a bit more than on the other two.

Poppies















I love this fabric. On this one I outlined the poppies in pink, including the coloured sections. (The print is quite stylised with blocks of colour in the pink poppy petals). When outlining the centres in black I added lines (sepals) and later sewed a black seed bead on the end of each sepal. The stems are grey in the print, but I outlines them in lime green and also used lime green for the outer border quilting (though it still doesn't show up very well in the photo).