by Real Traveler Symons_Family
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Darwin, Boomerang CP Howard Springs

From Around Australia in the fifth wheeler in Darwin, Australia on Jul 13 '08

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4 Places Visited

Berry Springs

"fun fun fun at berry springs"
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Crocodylus Park and Zoo

"Crocodylus Park and Zoo"
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teritory wildlife park

"teritory wildlife park"
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18 Trip Photos

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Itinerary Map

Symons_Family has visited 4 places in Darwin

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Black Winged Ibis
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Staying at the Boomerang Caravan Park which is 30 km out of Darwin City.

No waves, no change in weather and no wind. The sun isn't as strong as south of here.

14th July: Went for a drive into Darwin since we were still waiting on the kids school work to arrive. Darwin's a small city, we went for a walk out on the wharf, nice views across the bay. Drove around the bay to East Point and went to the war memorial, showed where the bombs hit in ww2 and the ships that were sunk, the Japanese penetrated down to Katherine. Airstrips were put into place from Katherine to Darwin. 63 bombs hit Darwin with more dead than the papers let on. A submarine net was laid from the east to the west of Darwin. Heaps of army operate out of Darwin.

Wallaby
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20th July: Went to the Darwin museum and art gallery where the cyclone Tracy exhibit is. Went to the Mindel market and had tea from the many stalls, ate it sitting on the beach watching the sunset.

22nd: Had a "drive" around the Hidden Valley race track - great.

27th July: Drove into the Rapid creek and Nightcliff markets, mostly the same stalls that are at Mindel market, but good to look around as there are different stall too. The Rapid creek market is mostly fruit and vegies. After the markets, we went to the Aquascene fish feeding, great, we all feed the 1 metre long milk fish and the 1/2 metre long mullet. They swam around our legs while sucking bread from our hands (and fingers). We patted them as they swam past.

Green Ants in its nest
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We finished up with the fish and then walked around the central Darwin streets, looked in souvenir shops and then had a drink at one of the restaurants lining the streets. We went to the Charles Darwin National park and saw the old bunkers from WW11 and then drove to Lee Point and went for a long walk across the sand to the water as the tide was out, the sand is a red yellow colour, much darker than the east coast. We finished off back at the Mindel markets for tea, Brett wanted nachos from one of the stalls and the kids and I had tea from the many Asian stalls. Watched the sun go down again from the beach.

Ant with fangs
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29th July: Went to the Territory Wildlife Park at Berry Springs. We meet up with Nifty and Marion by sheer luck and spent some time with them, the birds of prey show was good, we caught the train to different parts of the park and walked heaps too. The noctural house and the walk under aquarium had animals in them that we hadnt seen before. Marion, Nifty and their friend came back to the fifth wheeler for a coffee.

3rd August: SAM, Berry Springs;

2day we went 2 Berry Springs (!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!) 2 hav a swim. We started our swim at the high pool and slowly made our way down the spring but we didn't get 2 the end as it was soooooooooooooo long so we turned around and swam back up 2 the high pool which had a small waterfall. So while dodging all the rocks in the shallow-ish water I started to hav fun by jumping off of it. Then I found out that there was room between the rock and the fallin water soooooo i would jump off and instead of comin back up I would go and hide under the waterfall. Then I went up the waterfall and caught the football that the boys up the waterfall were throughin 2 stop it from goin over the waterfall (at this time i had completely lost everyone in my family). Finally it was time 2 go but b4 we did me and mum sat in the water 4 a bit and some little striped fish came and started biting our legs, it hurt.

Mindel markets at sunset
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5th August: Had a Sausage at the Boomerang CP. Tanya Kernagan was there and sang. The Discover Downunder crew was filming for the episode on the 23rd August.

6th August: JO, BBQ with Marion and Nifty; Today my family and I went to Marion and Nifty's place and had a BBQ, before that my sister and I went in the pool, meet some kids and played brandy. About an hour later we had the BBQ, I had a sausage in bread "yum". When we finished that Nifty's friend came down the tree (possum). Then Sam and I got feed the possum and pet it, it was so fluffy, that was so cool! About 10 minutes later we said goodbye, when we came back to our fifth wheeler I was so tired and fell asleep right away.

Big Burra
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8th August: Went to the Crocodylus Park and Zoo, it was a crocodile farm mixed with a mini zoo, lions and tigers, emus etc. Heaps of crocs, all piled on top of one another. Huge boys and girls in breeding pens and lots of their kids snapping at one another. We all held a baby croc, very cute

20th August:Went to the Jumping Crocs just past Humpty Doo. It was great to see wild crocs swimming towards us and then jumping up to meat dangling on a rope, one got angry with the side of the boat. The biggest one to jump up was an old boy, 6 metres long, weighing around 900 kg, BIG!!

Crocodylus park
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On the way back to Howard Springs we looked at the Windows to the Wetlands, an observation deck and info place, great view over the flat wetlands. We also went to Fogg Dam and had a 2 km walk looking at different birds, spiders and plants, we then drove across the dam wall which is not very high, stopped for a tortoise crossing the road and looked out over wetland with heaps of different water birds, brolgas, egrets and herons.

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