Day 91 / 2025 - Humpty Doo to Darwin

Leaving Humpty Doo we once again headed north up the Stuart Hwy to our next destination which would be home for the next three and a half weeks, Darwin.

This was not a big distance only travelling about 30km, just under 30 minutes away. We took the Stuart Hwy until we reach Hidden Valley road then turned left. The caravan park was only about 1km down the road not far from the Hidden Valley raceway. We booked in the drove to our site. We were in the new area backing onto the Amenities building and right next door to Mick, Carley and the boy's. Bruce and Gina were one row over directly in line opposite with us. The site was of reasonable size especially compared to some of the other sites. There was little shade but this was a new area so the trees were only just starting to grow.

 We opted for a full annexe instead of just privacy screens as this gave us more privacy. Unfortunately the outer rows of caravan occupants could only access the Amenities by walking through someone site. Nothing much we could do just had to accept it as part of our location. Our only exception is why do kids have to ride through running over our hoses and crushing them with their bikes.  

 We had arrived on Territory day so after setup we packed up our fireworks and headed for a location to let them off. Last time we had found the gardens along East Point Rd seem to be a popular spot for locals and visitors alike. We setup with chairs and a table and as the evening rolled on there were lots of fireworks going off with some wizzing past our heads. The frequency seems to increase as the night wore on. Around 8pm we decided it was getting a little too dangerous and decided to retire back to the van park. Later we found Mick's car had been hit on the bonnet putting a small dent in it. Some of the pandanus palms around where we had park had caught alight burning quite ferociously but eventually extinguished themselves.

Thursday night we took in the Mindil Markets at Mindil Beach near Fanny Bay. Being this time of year they were quite busy. There are plenty of food stalls of various nationalities to choose from and although it was quite busy you seem to get served in a reasonable amount of time. Once you have your food you can go and sit down on the beach and watch the sunset over the water. There are also a number of other stalls selling local trinkets and services.  

The Airforce was also in town practicing their fighter skills in a round of war games, operation Talismen. During the day the Jets would take off from Darwin airport screaming over the top of our heads. The sound was quite defining with us unable to hear ourselves talk until they had passed. There various participants in these games such as Australia, United Kingdom and the US.

 We took a trip out to Berry Springs Nature Park on Sunday, about a 30 min trip from our campsite. When we arrived we didn't realise how popular this would be but should have guessed being a weekend on school holidays. The parking area was full and people were parking along the road entry almost back to Cox Peninsula Rd. The park and swimming area is surprisingly big as we had no real problem finding a space to setup our chairs and there was plenty of room in the water. Having a picnic lunch we then took our pool noodles, enter the water near the fall's then floated along the river until reaching the lower pool where we could exit out of the water.