Darwin holiday

Our family holiday with cousins Ella and Myia to visit Great Aunty Crena in Darwin for her 70th birthday party did not go to plan, as Crena was unfortunately sick and in hospital when we arrived. Thankfully, she had recovered and we were able to visit her at home before we left.

The girls loved our apartment at Fannie Bay with it's spa pool and kid friendly yard; the Mums and Dads loved the short walk to the Sailing and Yacht clubs - with their playgrounds - for sunset drinks and dinner. After four days in town, a highlight of which was a day trip on a bbq houseboat on Mary River Billabong with our cousins from Darwin and Mummulgum, and lots of crocodiles and bird life, we picked up our camper vans, split up the youngest two girls (!) and headed off to the surrounding National Parks. First stop were the waterholes of Litchfield National Park, which the girls loved, followed by a night at Douglas Daly hot springs (8 kms of corrugated road - grr - but more swimming and paddling - see first picture of Zoe) and two nights in commercial caravan parks in Kakadu. We chose this option as we only had 2WD campers, and they had child friendly pools for relaxing in in the afternoons. The campers were good because they gave the girls a sense of continuity which they would not have got from staying in different accommodation each night. While Zoe slept a lot while we were driving, which was great, to make up for the busy time we'd had in Darwin, Ella and Myia were often awake but, by all accounts, well behaved.

Highlights for Zoe were, I think, the helicopter ride that she watched Ewan, Sally and I take out of Jabiru up over the Arnhem land escarpment, and the trips there and back on the plane. We've been role playing 'airplanes' for days now, and she loves it when we pretend to get drinks from the air hostesses. She also enjoyed our visits to the rock art sites Nourlangie Rock and Ubirr, where she could run along the paths, climb the steps and play in the dirt. She thinks the paintings of one of the spirits is 'spiderman'.