We sold up, packed up and decided to embark on the adventure of our lives. Follow us as we travel around Australia in a caravan.

Uhh oh! Chris has had some more issues with his van. The pressure valve in his hot water system is not working and water pumps straight out of the van. In addition to that his new jockey wheel broke and the level rider U bolt broke. So there are 3 dramas at the moment. We headed for Katherine and made it by 10:30am. Chris headed straight to Mitre 10 to see if he could instigate repairs. We headed to Woolworths to stock up with food. We are just not sure what to expect in the way of supplies in Kakadu so Vicki and I want to be prepared. Katherine is an extremely expensive place to shop. The last Woolies we went to, I bought a lettuce for 99 cents. Here I paid $3.38 for the same iceberg lettuce. We bought only the necessities. We are needing to buy our water for drinking and because it is so hot, we are consuming about 10 litres a day. Normally we can buy 10 litre boxes for about $5.00 which is good but carrying a week’s supply adds a lot of weight to the van.

We arrived at Mary River Roadhouse and parked for the night. It is right on the border of Kakadu National Park. We have decided to stay here for two nights and spend tomorrow exploring the south of Kakadu before moving further into the park the following days. Kakadu is about 12000 square kilometres so there is plenty of amazing Australian country to explore.

Dinner was ham steaks with pineapple and egg on toast. It is still so hot so we all cooled down in the pool. There is something to be said for these roadhouse parks, the amenities are basic (ancient even) but each one has a well kept inground pool normally adjacent to the bar so that we can swim then watch the kids as we enjoy a beverage. So well thought out!

We also had plenty of nightlife to observe here. A trip to the amenities block revealed geckos galore, huge black spiders, and tree frogs. Vicki and I reduced our liquid intake immediately to also reduce the need to visit the amenities block, while Aaron and Caleb captured as many critters as they could, bringing them in the van to share their triumphs. It didn’t take them long to realise we didn’t appreciate it.

It was an extremely  hot night. When we went to bed it was 31 degrees and we knew we were in for a sleepless night.