Heading back to the east coast, March.

Kronosaurus Korner, a fossil museum, is in Richmond, a little town in north west Queensland. We learned all about the dinosaur history of the area. Here's their site: www.kronosauruskorner.com.au

Across the street was a butcher shop with a large sign claiming 'Locally Killed Meat'.

More Darwin (Feb.)

On a stroll around downtown Darwin we found an artist. This painting is called Bush fire Dreaming. The aboriginal people have many traditional stories they depict with paintings. They are dream time stories that tell of the beginning. I hope I've described this properly, we're still learning. They invited us to sit down and watch. She was dipping a toothpick into paint and touching it to the canvas, one dot at a time to create the picture. The man on the left told us how he was from the east and she was from Arnhem land (in the north), but that they were all connected.

Darwin again, end of Feb.

We decided to drive the extra 400kms. back up to Darwin, once we reached Katherine. The motorhome needed another service and we liked Darwin. Unfortunately our friends we met last time were away, the girls really missed seeing their friend Sam again.

The pictures above were from Crocodylus Park, a small zoo in Darwin. We joined a tour around the zoo and Kyra got to feed a 5 metre saltwater crocodile, holding a stick with a piece of chicken tied on the end of a string. The huge croc came up out of the water a few feet to grab the treat. At the end of the tour we got to hold a baby croc. It felt like snake skin.

We also visited the museum and art gallery of the N.T. Among other interesting displays they have a cyclone Tracy section, a cyclone that destroyed all of Darwin city on Christmas Eve, 1974. They have a sound booth where you hear, in the dark, recordings of the storm made that night. It was a deafening roar with crashing and ripping at times. Very frightening.

Kununarra, Feb. 25-26

Back in the northern territory we stopped in a town called Kununarra for the night. Our campground was on a river. There was a spot where you could throw bread to the catfish and soon after we started feeding them a freshwater crocodile ( a 'freshie' ) came along to join the feast. They're neat looking with their skinny snout. They're 1-2 meters long and we've been told they'll only bother you if you corner them or jump on them. An algae-covered freshwater turtle also came for the bread. You can see it in the last photo, it's head is just peeking out behind the freshie's head. Try clicking on the photo to see it's little face.

As we walked the river's edge we found another freshie lounging on the shore. If you look closely at it's snout you'll see the top one is short.

The Wet Season, Jan. to March

We got to experience a little of the wet season. In the north they have the wet and the dry for seasons. Many vehicles here are 4 wheel drives with a snorkel coming out the top of the vehicle so they can wade through deep road floods. In many places posts are placed by the road with meter measurements marked on them, sometimes as high as 5 meters. So when the road is flooded you can tell how deep it is by looking at the posts.

The road on the left was a side road and not on our route. Apparently the locals take advantage of a flood to go for a swim. For us it was too much of a flood and crocs are always on our minds. This was in the Kimberlies, which is an area between Broome and Kununarra. It's a beautiful place, wild and lush in the wet season, and dotted with boab trees.

Kyra on the left is laughing because we just splashed through a small flood over the road. We can't go anywhere deep with our 2 wheel drive and no snorkel. You can see the water and the white measurement post behind us.

It was really lovely to see water and rain. You don't appreciate it so much until you've been dried out in a brown land for some time. Water is life.

Feb. 2008 cows and a wierd bug

This great bug jumped on Kevin's arm in a town called Fitzeroy Crossing. It was kind enough to pose for the picture.

Many cows wander free in Australia. Big road kill.

We've met many lizards. Here are 3 from west and north Australia. The 2 above were very large monitor lizards, over a meter long from nose to tail tip. They often hang out on the roads to warm up in the morning sun. The little one on the left we had to stop for before he decided to get out of the way of the motorhome. Then he had a look at us as we looked out the window at him, before he decided to run off.

Emus in Exmouth

These emus walked the streets in the town of Exmouth. They're such tall and funny birds. We've seen heaps of them all over Australia, mostly in farmers fields and scrub land.

The girls are doing some school work above with yet another view out their window.

Turtles, Feb. 17th,

Cape Range national park has the Jurabi turtle centre. It's just an open air pavillion in the scrub near the beach. It has a lot of information about turtles displayed all around. On some evenings they give a talk and slide show then take people down to see nesting turtles. It's similar to the Mon Repos centre on the east coast of Australia, only this time we did see the turtles!

In the moonlight we hiked along the beach in our group until a green turtle was spotted coming up the beach. We sat about 20 metres away to watch her. She took a very long time to dig out her nest: a large depression in the sand. Finally, when she settled down in it, we were allowed to crawl up behind her on our tummies. She was huge, a little less than a metre across the shell. When we checked on her later she was dropping her eggs into a deeper hole she'd dug directly under her cloaca (where the eggs pop out, so we learned from the 10 year old boy who got to help his mom do this volunteer work). The eggs were just like ping pong balls, looking pink in our red torch light.

After she was done (about an hour and 2 sleepy kids later) she crawled back to the sea. We also watched another turtle crawl back to the sea after changing her mind about laying eggs. It takes them a long time, they pull with their flippers a few times then rest. Then they had to deal with the rocks and the waves. It took so long we felt like cheering when the final wave set them free in the sea.

Early the next morning we drove back, avoiding about 40 wallabys near and on the road. That's the time of day everyone here tells you not to drive during. We went slooowww. Back at the turtle beach we were hoping to see some early morning hatchlings scrambling to the water. This time of year the turtles are still laying but hatchlings are also emerging. In the picture there is a turtle nest in front of the girls. If you look closely (click on the photo to enlarge) you will see hundreds of tiny footprints all headed out of the nest and towards the sea. These were baby turtles that hatched during the night. We didn't see any, but we found many footprints and some empty turtle shells. Apparently only 1 in 1000 make it to adulthood, and now some say 1 in 10,000. The girls were keen on coming up with ideas to help save these endangered creatures. It was a wonderful (and sleepy) experience.

Exmouth, Cape Range nationa park

Continuing up north on the west coast we drove into Exmouth and around a point to Cape Range national park. The 2 kangaroo pictures above were taken early the next morning. The baby was on the road in front of us. We stopped and it just stood there looking confused, then hopped into the bush to be with it's mom. They look alike. The other one is a male, notice the muscles! I wouldn't get in his way.
We did some snorkeling in Turquoise Bay. It was getting quite windy because of cyclone Nicholas (the girls were giggling about the name of the cyclone Nicholas, they couldn't wait to tell you about it) off the north coast of Australia, but the bay was calm enough. The coral here was beautiful, huge brain coral, antler coral, and others I don't know the names of. We saw some great tropical fish including a large butterfly fish, black and white clown fish, and many others. The girls have learned to dive down to get closer looks at the little fish and sea cucmbers. We would have loved to do more snorkeling in other spots we were told about but the windy weather was only getting worse.

Coral Bay: Feb. 14-17

Just north of Monkey Mia we stayed in Coral Bay. It's a tiny, mostly tourist town on the ocean. From up the beach you start snorkeling and let the current take you back down about a kilometre. We saw small sting rays, a small eagle ray (they look like they're flying through the water), many parrot fish and other pretty things. Kevin and Kyra saw a green turtle dining on algae. We stayed 3 days and snorkeled everyday.

This little gecko hung out by the sink where I did dishes in the campground. We see these guys everywhere in Australia. They have sticky feet so we usually look up to find them in campground washrooms. They hang out near lights and eat the bugs. One day we saw one with a big grasshopper hanging out of it's mouth. They're not more than 12 cm long, and the babies are only 4cm. They're very cute and hard to catch, as the girls found out.