Sunset on Mindil

I had heard of Mindil Beach, I'd even heard of the amazing sunsets there, but I was not prepared for the reality of it.  Here in Australia it is rare to see the sun set on the water, well on the East Coast anyway, so naturally when you get to see it a crowd gathers.  So we headed off on Sunday evening to Mindil Beach.  We packed the picnic basket, well Carmel did, talk about the hostess with the mostess, truly I barely had to do a thing all weekend.  Anyway off we headed with our chicken wing dings and our 3 bottles of wine, yes actually she packed 4 and when we laughed she took one out.  Really Carmel now we are sippers remember.  Ha haha!! And no we didn't drink all of them.  So the beach is lovely and the people begin to gather.  The sky is actually really really blue, but my camera didn't catch that.

Suddenly there is a gorgeous yellow sky and yes it is as bright as this shot shows, hurts your eyes hey?!

The colours begin to change and my mouth begins to hang open a little, really it is beautiful.

From blue to yellow to orange and then to a pinky tinge.  The cameras come out and the crowds gather, wine glasses in hand and faces filled with wonder.

The boys even had a romantic wistful moment together sipping on a lovely red having a quiet chat, aww isn't it lovely.

And then the sun is gone and another day is ended in the Top End.  Really an amazing place to visit, beautiful water so blue and so many strange and wonderful things to see.

Such blue water, really so lovely.

Darwin's CBD skyline looking over the harbour.

Thunder clouds building, but we had no rain.  The wet season is coming though and we hope we get to see the city and areas in the wet one day soon, they say it goes from the dry browns and reds of the dry to every shade of green you can imagine.  Well we loved our trip to Darwin, great friends, great times and a great place to visit.

Never Smile at a Crocodile

Corroboree Billabong 38kilometres of dark green water, edged with the tallest lilly's I have ever seen.  Home to the fattest crocs I have ever seen and supposedly filled with Barramundi the Queensland fisherman's dream catch.  I say supposedly because after fishing for most of the day, the boys caught only one that was legal size.  Mind you the fillets from that fish were huge.  Back to the lilly's this is just a sample of the miles and miles of beautiful flowers we passed on our trip to Corroboree.

So much life hidden within the flower itself.

And birds of all shapes and sizes live here too.

Tall elegant Brolgas.

Egrets and magpie geese and bronzed ducks.

I think this lonely lilly marks the entrance to a huge croc den, well it could.

The seed pod in the centre of the lilly goes a dark woody brown and is often seen in dried arrangements.  I so wanted to reach out and pick some, not quite game enough though.

Purple lilly home to flies too, or maybe they are some sort of native bee.

A little blurry I know, but we were in a boat okay.

And then there were these tiny little guys all soft and furry.

Yes we do breed them strange Down Under, this is a Jabaroo, how amazing is he!!  He stands about 5 feet tall.

Just to give you some sort of idea of the water levels in the wet season, check out the fence.  They are heading into the wet now and it will be much more humid and obviously it will rain a lot.

The Billabong will spread out over the surrounding flood plains.

Some people hire houseboats to spend the weekend fishing, see the line out the back.  Believe me it is hot out there.

A pair of Sea Eagles and their nest.  How huge is that thing.  Apparently it is nearly 20 years old too.

I think he was checking me out.

We shared our ham for lunch with this Hawk.

Now we are getting down to the business end of the Billabong.  Big, Fat, Enormous, Ugly Crocodiles.  These fellas used to be scared of the boats apparently, but not this one.

His big pointy tail even gives me the shivers.

Can you see the tail points, they look like teeth.  EEkkk!!

See his eyes on the left and his tail way out there on the right shiver.

Umm not too close now.

Holey Dooley now that's close enough okay.

I think he wanted this Barramundi for dinner.

They tell me this is the breakfast of champions up in Darwin.  Bundy Rum and Barra fillets.  This is one fillet off the Barra that Merv caught.

So tomorrow come with me to the Mindil markets for the sunset to beat all sunsets.

Until then cheers.

The Top End

Well hello, it's been a week since my last post and truly I have been busy, busy busy.  Last Thursday Adrian and I went on a long anticipated trip to Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.  You can see on the map Toowoomba, where we live and a long, long way up north Darwin.  Our friends Merv and Carmel, who we went to Melbourne to visit and, some time back and who we shared my 50th birthday with in Sydney this year, are back living in Darwin.  Darwin was devastated in 1974 by cyclone Tracey.  A terrible event that literally flattened the city.  You wouldn't know it 37 years later, it is lovely.  Well we thought it was, so many thing for us to see.  So let's begin.

Our first night was spent catching up, sipping a few bubbles and for the boys watching the footy of course.  Saturday we went to Litchfield Park and to some beautiful water holes and waterfalls.  On the way though we stopped to see these incredible flat termite mounds.  They call them the Magnetic Termite Mounds because they have the flat sides North and South and so stay a good temperature during the day, at midday when it is really hot and the sun is right over head there is only a small area of nest exposed, very clever.

They looked like headstones to me.  And they are the consistency of cement, very strange.

Yep they'll kill me for this oh well.  So here we have Carmel and Merv in the front an of course Adrian in the rear.

The other termite nests you see are like this.  This is a grass eating termite mound and the large one actually stands about 15 metres high and is about 50 years old.

This is an ants nest.  Made of leaves and perched high up in the branches of the trees, tiny little ants with green bottoms live in them and the can bite, so watch out.

Now I have to say I am not a real good bushy.  I don't like snakes, dust, ants, flies and I hate water pools where I can't see the bottom so usually this little hole would have been out of bounds for me, no matter how hot and it was bloody hot....  But you could see the bottom easily, it was rocky and slippery and the water was cold and wonderful.  This fall gave great massages too, back up to it and it's like a thousand chinese ladies dancing all over your shoulders, ha ha.

We weren't alone here but there was plenty of room for everyone.

This fall too far down for swimming and the big cave home to bats, eek!

Lunch at this lovely lagoon, the reflections were amazing, don't you think?

And such pretty yellow flowers in the shade.

On the way from the big fall what a view.

So join me tomorrow for barra fishing and crocodile hunting, really it is scary.