Driving to the city

After a three day weekend, where I mostly cleaned my house: fans, aircon, freezer, the lot, I am ready for a new week: one which I have already began. 

The travel permission web site was up and running after not letting me connect on the weekend.   I had asked our admin officer to get it up for me, being new and all I wasn’t on the system.  But, I didn't really expect it to be hooked up so soon.. but,  there it was.  The Admin officer had even put in my name and some of the basic information.  I filled in the rest of it… this time actually finding my ABN number because I knew what that was. As well as the vehicle Rego (which actually means the license plate number) so all good.  Paperwork is so much easier when you understand the language and know what needs to be done.  It was a 'go'. I was on the road in a troopy again: Woohoo!

But it was a bit of a slow start. I went into the office and admitted to the teaching principal (TP)..

“Okay.. I wasn’t actually paying attention when we came here.. how do I get out of town?”

He explained, one of the teachers explained.. yet still, when I got to the little junction just on the outside of town, I was again confused.. I had a six-hour drive ahead of me and I was lost still within the little town limits, a town of just 150, souls still in sight.  Good lord.  So.. I guessed.  And I did well. 

Before I knew it I was heading along the rocky red road.. and when I came to the first ‘dip’  rather wide and filled with water from the wet, months ago, I knew had I chosen well.. I was on my way. 

The next intersection was easy.. right to Western Australia and left to Darwin.  I had seen that when we arrived.  It had a big black and white metal sign of a woman and man walking.. it would have been a long walk in the heat of the days here.

So I turned left.. drove for about 30 minutes in the glory of a NT morning and was rewarded by the sight of the billabong.  It wasn’t quite as majestic at 9 in the morning as it was at seven a.m. the week before when it had been flooded in an orange glow.  I could almost hear music that morning.. . orchestral, Disney.. the birds taking flight at the sound of our diesel engine in the misty morning.. but not going far.  Instead, their short flight had them landing again on the water,  We had frightened the brumbies too.. about 10 of them running off into the rising sun and the tropical bushes and magical huge termite mounds.  The water was still and surrounded by pink lilies.. and in the centre was the still outline of a crocodile.. not a large one, but he was there.. watching and absolutely still.  I didn’t have my camera with me.. hopefully another day.. but the picture is there in my mind, never to be forgotten.  Beautiful.. magical..

So I veered in and took another look.  I also took some photos, which don't capture the magic of that first morning but are amazing never the less.  I stayed for a few minutes and headed back on to the dirt road.

The track is wide in places, soft as snow in others, and almost paved in others. It is rocky and ribbed around the corners where people brake and their tires make the ridges and dig up the sharp stones.  There are 100 kilometers of this beautiful country along the dirt.. I was in four wheel drive in the big troopy, travelling about 70 K an hour and meeting up with just two other vehicles.  One a twin cab ute and the other a larger truck loaded with a small container. 

There were fires, as they almost always seem to be in this country.  They seem to just burn off the grass, part of their land management plan up here. I wasn’t too worried about them, not like the ones I had left behind along the highway to Prince George back in B.C. just a  couple of weeks but a lifetime ago.  But the water buffalo that was escaping the heat, as he crossed the road in front of me, seemed not too happy.  This trip also saw a couple of wallabies and of course, the birds.. black cockatoos being my favourite.

The dirt road eventually turns into a single strip of Bitumen road, connected by a long bridge.  Under the bridge is a huge sandbar, a place the crocodiles have discovered and rule over, sunning themselves.  This particular morning there were a few of them, stretched out on the cool sand in the morning sun.  Once across the bridge, I unlocked the hubs and was back on my way to Darwin.

Another day in the Tertri...