Butterfly Gorge and Jo & Pete

After the Litchfield NP we visited the Butterfly Gorge in the Daily River Region.

Once again an awesome place that we had for our own.

What is that and who made it????

On our camp spot at the Olloo crossing we met Jo and Pete, two biologists that were doing studies for their PHDs. They were catching and examining crabs in NT to study influences and changes in the food web. They invited us to a yummy Indian dinner. Thank you again! We met them again a couple of days later. But this will come in one of the next posts. Then you will see also pics of them.

Pete showed us a cane toad and explained us that they are harmless to humans except you would eat them. The cane toads are another story of Australians and introduced animals. The cane toad was introduced 1935 in Queensland to eat the cane beetle in the sugar cane fields. But the cane toad eats also a lot of native animals and even worth every animal - birds, goannas, small crocodiles, etc. -  that eats the cane toad will die because of it´s poisonousness. So this animal is a big plague in Australia and spread from Queensland to the Northern Territory and also to the north of Western Australia.

Impressions from the Litchfield NP

The "Lost City": Rock formations that look like an acient city.

Termite mounds that are around 4 to 5m high

Again the lost city.

Cycads. They should be older than the dinosaurs. When it´s too dry they get rid of their leaves.

Impressions from Darwin

We stayed a long time in Darwin. It was not the best time we had in Australia. We had some dramas with our car and spend more money on our lady than we wanted to and we had some other issues. But that is not a topic for that Blog here. We will tell you more when we are back again. But the important thing is, that now everything is alright again! But anyway here some impressions from the capital of the NT:

Insight the house of parliament...

Spider lilies in front of a supermarket...

Hmmm... Red Rooster and Aboriginal Art?! There´s something wrong. 

The sea near to the CBD.

That is three minutes walking distance away from the CBD.

Frogs everywhere... Also on the tap of a shower. Those frogs could climb up walls and ceilings.

Northern Territory - land of the crocodiles and waterfalls

Our first impression from the Northern Territory was crocodiles and waterfalls: Here the Edith falls with a nice natural swimming pool.

Hmmmm... "Reduce the risk...". Whatever that means. But it´s nice that you cn manage wild crocodiles. Would be nice to be a crocodile manager! ;-)

Our next stop on the way to Darwin was the "Robin Falls". There we had our small privat pool without any crocs.

A shower under the waterfall.

Like in paradise.

Happy birthday my old friend - party for two.

My birthday started in the bush near to Roper Bar (it is in the nowhere)... Than we had to travel another 330 kms to the next bottleshop in Katherine. And than another 50kms to a nice camp ground  ín the Kathrine Gorge NP near to the Edith falls. There we had a nice Aussie style barbie, beer and Cuba Libre and got pissed. So a little bit like every year, but there were no other party guests... :-(

;-)

Without any words... By the way: Thanks for the nice home distiled rum from Dess (one guy from the Springsure Roadhouse)

Northern Territory we are comming

On our last morning in Queensland we had a visitor in our camp oven...

On the Savanna Way we were really driving in the nowhere. I think here live about 0,0003 people per km²

Then it was time for our obligatory border crossing beer! ;-)

But after a few kms we had to stop at a river crossing. A roadtrain got stuck and had to wait for another roadtrain that helps to push it up the hill. After half an hour we could go on. That´s Australia!

Savannah Way from Maytown to Darwin

A family of wildpigs in the middle of the street

Termite mounds everywhere...

Sunset at the Gulf of Carpantaria in Karumba

Massive termite mounds on our way

At the end of the Savannah Way: everywhere dust!

Who travels to Maytown coming from the north???? We do!!!

This picture can´t describe how you feel when you stand in front of the gigantic "Black Mountain" south of Cooktown. The Aborigines believe that the mountain has magic forces and stock that went into the labyrinth of the black rocks never came out again! But you have to stand in front of the mountain to understand the dimensons.

View from a hill at Archor Point just south of Cooktown.

After a short stop in Cooktown we drove to the Lakefield NP and camped near to a Billabong.

As we run out of time we decided not to go up to the tip. Instead we choose a track to the south. A track to the ruins of Maytown. This was the roughest and most challenging track we did so far in Australia. To make it short: It was a track that you normally never ever should do alone because it´s too dangerous! But we and our Landcruiser survived! Unfortunately we were too excited when we were driving so that we totally forgot to take any pics or movies. Only the picture of this sign, not more. 

On our way to Cooktown we met a stormtrooper and a gollum ;-)

The next destination was to reach Cooktown - the gateway to the Cape York peninsula. On the way we came trough Cape Tribulation. That is where two World Heritage sites meat: The Great Barrier Reef comes to the shore and meets the Daintree NP.

We both were very happy that in mid of August the tropics were not humid at all.

Near to the beach at Cape Tribulation were also nice mangroves.

We just wanted to head on to Cooktown as we saw on the street two Australian hitchhikers "stormtrooper" Hannah and "Gollum" Tristen. Hanna had the nickname stormtrooper and Tristen looks a little bit like Gollum. See the last pic in this post. We immediately decided to take them with us and it was a good decision as we had lots of fun!!!! 

All together on a tree near Cape Tribulation.

A nice lookout after a few ks north of Cape Tribulation.

Here we trained to shout the first time the famous "Koooowee"... Have a look in the movie "Crocodile Dundee" and you now what we mean.

And than we stopped just a few kms south of Cooktown at the famous pub "The Lions Den Hotel". It was so far the best pub we saw in Australia. It was just lovely and had an awesome beergarden!!!!

The beergarden. Nice!!!!

....

Riding the lion...

Luckily the pub had also a nice campground... So we camped in our rooftop tent and Hannah and Tristen slept in our other tent and were really surprised where it was made.

And they discoverd also that it is more than just a tent...

I would say that there are some similarities...

Anyway: It was a great day with them and we had some beer and nice talking!