Territory Wildlife Park

Tuesday 16th
This day was one we had been waiting for, for awhile. This park is not far down the road and we have driven past it a lot and heard about it a lot so we were very excited to finally be going! After we paid our entrance fee we first saw a snake!

There is glass in between us!
We then walked to the Nocturnal House and then caught the train to the sandbar. Our kids were very excited about riding on the train.

We had to all squeeze on together at times but no body minded. It was a big adventure!

At the sandbar there were Barramundi and Whiprays. He is feeding a Whipray now. They only sting you when they get scared and hot water curers the sting so they have a thermos on the sand if needed!

A Whipray as it swam past us.

We were then given worms to hold out and these fish would spit at us and we would then have to drop the worms for them to eat. They were very accurate too!!! We got a little wet.

We then headed to the flight deck which had an excellent birds display. They were so well trained and as she talked they let different birds out and it was really interesting. They kids loved it as the birds fly quite close to the audience. They get food treats all the time for their good performance. She has an owl on her hand.

This kite bought his fish over on the stick near where we were sitting to eat.

The kids got to have a photo with a wedge tail eagle!

They all wanted to be in the photo with this big one! He was the size of Manning! It was then back to the main station for some early lunch then some snake holding time!

Zane and Josiah got the first hold.

Then Manning and Kimberly. You weren't meant to pat the head or play with the tail as that makes her angry! Manning couldn't help himself and Kimberly was a little worried that the snake may bite her for what Manning was doing!

It was then Baylee and Ethans turn. Baylee was a little worried where the head was going.

Then Kimberly wanted to go again herself to feel how heavy the snake was.

We headed to the Aquarium where there is an walk through tunnel aquarium. That was great as you really got close to the animals.

Catch this one swimming by!

This salty is just relaxing.

The whiprays would swim over top of you in the tunnel. It was good as we had just seen them feeding then to come and see their mouths from underneath made more sense to the kids.

This is a sawfish.You can't see it's nose very well but it does look like a chain saw.

This turtle kept coming up to the glass face to face with the kids. He was nice.

The salty was sleeping under the water and the kids were feeling a little sleepy too. If you were on top of the water you could not see him at all!! He was flat on the bottom on the sand!

Baylee and the Barranudi he caught!! A bit tough eating though I was told!!!

This is for those creative wood sculpturing friends of ours!That is the stand for the notice board.

And these wooden seats were very nice in the bird avairy. Except you had to be careful where you sat as the pigeions were directly above!
It was an excellant day and we were nearly the last ones to leave at 5pm after getting there at 9am. A big fun day out!

Mechanical Monday

Monday 15th
School work in the morning. Cleaning including washing. Then we headed off to the shops. We went into Palmerston shopping centre and as we got out of the car there was a car parked next to us that made us look like funny short fat people and the kids stood there for ages laughing at their reflextions. I had to pull them away as we needed to get a new alternator. It had been rattling a lot and we had got to the point of having to hit it to get it working. Tim did have a fair bit of smoke coming out of the bonnet at one stage so we thought it might be best to get a new one. We got one easy enough. We had a few other things to pick up on the way home so I was driving when we pulled up to the caravan shop. I let Tim head in as we stayed in the car. I turned the car off waiting for Tim. As Tim came back his mouth was open and he said "I thought you were going to leave the car on" I said "Oh". So we tried to start it and it wouldn't turn over enough. So Tim pulled the pinch bar and hammer out from under the seat. I thought if anyone was watching we might look like gang leader with our weapons under the seat or very nervous people that have to protect themselves!  I popped the bonnet and he gave the alternator a huge wack. We tried again, nothing! We repeated this for about 5 times before we eventually gave it a big enough wack to get it going! So no more stopping, it was straight home for some mechanics!

So Tim started off by having Ethan and Mannings help with the alternator while I got things ready for tea. Then as the time for cooking on the BBQ came up Ethan took over with that and Josiah was the mechanics helper. As it went on I was helping Tim so that he could get it finished before the sun went down, Josiah helped Ethan with the BBQ and then Baylee and Kimberly cooked pancakes on the BBQ for desert. So the alternator was in and we had the best tea, a huge team effort. 

Super Sunday

Sunday 14th
We headed to Cornerstone Baptist Church at Howard Springs. We were a little early so we took the opportunity take a little drive around Howard Springs. It is quite a pretty town with some flash properties and more mango farms. Church was great. On the way to church Tim and I were singing the song I Will Rise and they had it in the worship. Fantastic words about what Jesus has done for us and living in that knowledge, letting it soak into our being and living as free people the way God intended us to be! Kym was leading the worship and she did a great job. I sang my little heart out. The creation group were speaking and they do a good job of making it interesting for everyone. Got to meet more people at the church this time and some more SA people.
After lunch we headed to Adrian and Jenny Cook's house at Palmerston. They are the SA family from around Tim's home area. They have 5 kids so the kids had fun playing there.They have a pool and that is always a winner.  Adrian got called out to work so we might catch him another time. We had a lot of laughs and time flew as we chatted to Jenny.
It was a another fun Sunday.

Servicing The Car

Saturday 13th
We are in slow holiday mode. Main thing of the day was Tim getting the oil changed in the car. We rang up about getting a quote to get a basic service done and it was going to be between $500 and $1000 so Tim thought he would save us some money and do it himself! The only problem was that we didn't have any flat ground to do it on here in the caravan park so we rang up the great Ian and Kym up the road here and they were happy to let us use a piece of their ground. We really appreciate these guys. They are so easy going.

The kids got creative with their oranges and carved faces on them, making them look like they are eating the knife.

Tim's camera took a better photo of the front of our site!I'm going to try and stash all those palms in the boxes on top of the car and take them home!!! No ferns though unless it is in real wet places all year round. It is very dry now and the palms are dropping their branches regularly. It is dry and warm so I guess the ferns wouldn't survive this time of the year.
The out door movie at night was Old Dogs and was quite funny. Really got our kids laughing.

Darwin City

Friday 12th
We were going to the Wildlife Park down the road but as the kids were in recovery mode we stayed home. Tim rang some mechanics as he needed to get a service done on the car, but was quoted some huge amount so he decided to change the oil himself. After lunch the kids were doing pretty good so we jumped in the car and headed to buy an oil filter and oil. We drove into Darwin city and as I was driving I said " We are in the city" and Tim said "No way!" Just not many cars and not very busy. It was very easy to drive around and find parks.

Tim took a photo of the cars in the city. The 2 that were driving past us. Really quiet even though you still had the big buildings. We went into the visitors centre and grabbed a few more pamphlets then drove out. Amazing. We like this city.
That night back at the caravan when it was dark and all the kids were in bed I went out to get some clothes off the line and something jumped away from my feet. So I grabbed a torch and found myself a cane toad. I got the only brave man that was awake, Tim, to come and knock it on the head, quite hard. We got to show the kids in the morning. They are very different to the lovely green tree frogs we see every night.

Dundee Beach

Wednesday 10th
We all slowly got ready, very much in holiday mode up here, and headed out to Dundee beach to see the Millers. It was an interesting drive as the trees got taller and more foresty. You still have no idea how many people live around as their driveways all go into the forest and there is no sign of houses most of the time. Murray came out on the road to help us find their place as like all the others they are nicely nestled into the forest.Baylee told us that they had tried pig shooting but they didn't even see any pigs or crocodiles and they tried fishing but that wasn't happening either. I think they had fun trying though.

This is their shack and it is perfect as it has a lot of air flow and shade. All you need up here.

You can see some of the palms behind that Graham and Robin have planted are now big and make the place look very tropical. They took us down to the beach. We are not all in there although that would of been a fun thing to try!Murray is waving as we head off.

Baylee is holding a hermit crab. There wasn't many fish to be caught but there were plenty of hermit crabs. We kept our eyes open for the big saltys but never saw one. There were plenty of huge jelly fish, the size of a big dinner plate, washed up on the beach.

There were these big trees that grew along the beach but apparently you can't grow them inland. The kids enjoyed climbing them as we sat and talked at the beach. Was again a very nice day, 30, calm, sun shining and a good time catching up with friends from home. 

Home Day

Thursday 11th
Some of the kids did some school work but we had a few of them not well, with tummy cramps and just feeling flat. So not much happened except relaxing.
We had been told we would hear a lot of fireworks for the whole month but we haven't heard that many, but this night we heard some more. They are big bangs. We are now realising that there are quite a few bats in the trees around us and they are quite noisy at night. A real screechy voice!