Feeling great tonight ... nice grassy campground, great view of the sky, and the cold southerly wind has stopped. Debbie has recovered from the bug which knocked her around the previous couple of days, and we’re an easy day’s drive from Katherine. Nearly there now! The kids even helped pitch camp and cook dinner, amazing! Two weeks in, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re all relaxed, the anxiety has gone, now we have four weeks to visit the amazing places we’ve heard about, before we need to head for home again.

It was antarctic this morning at Barkly Homestead as we packed up; the wind froze my fingers. Drove to three-ways roadhouse where we took this pic of the boys; the bull bar is mounted to the wall.

The big surprise of the day was Newcastle Waters, just off the highway, which we visited looking for a camp site. It’s a tiny hamlet on an old stock route, with several national trust buildings and a memorial park. There is nowhere to camp, but just before the town is a long causeway across a huge lake which several thousand water birds are calling home. It was about 4:00 so the afternoon light was great and we all got busy with our cameras. Photographed my first Striated Heron, which was rather exciting. Was sorely tempted to launch our boat!