Roper Bar to Humpty Doo via Edith Falls and Bog Frogs

For those of you that don’t know, Barramundi are large fish which inhabit the coastal waters of Northern Australia. They are one of the few fish that can live in both salt water and fresh water, therefore the mouths of large rivers flowing into the sea are particularly popular with Barramundi fishermen. We spent a few days with about a dozen of these hardy, fanatical types at Roper Bar – the Bar in question having nothing to do with alcohol but was a river crossing marking the highest tidal point of the Roper River.

Now Barramundi fishermen are not the eco-warriors we were used to camping with in the national parks. Not for them low impact camping using environmentally friendly solar panels to charge up batteries to run their fridges. Generators were the name of the game – the bigger the better. These ran all day, with a cacophony of noise, not to run a mere fridge but to run a deep freeze with the certainty it would be needed to preserve their anticipated catch until they got home. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they stayed in the camp all day and had to suffer the racket with us. However, they went off fishing leaving Sandra and I, who were having a few rest days after the bogging down episode on the Port Roper road, to suffer in Generator City.

This was bad but worse was to follow when they returned to camp. Barramundi fishermen (and their wives, who if anything were even more fanatical) seem to have a liking for country music – and assume that others share this passion. I knew things were coming to a head when I heard Sandra mutter, “If they play Stand By Your Man again, there’ll be trouble”

They did. And there was!

With the road south still blocked we decided to head north to Darwin and had an uneventful run on the sealed Stuart Highway stopping for two nights at Edith Falls which had an excellent campsite next to the falls. The falls fed a large swimming pool right next to the campsite, however upstream from the main pool were a number of other swimming holes including the Sweetwater Pool where we found splendid isolation. Taking a picnic and drinks, we spent the day reading, swimming and Sandra got on with some of her craftwork although not without incident. Firstly, a Brown Snake (one of the really nasties) was seen slithering away from Sandra’s crafting spot then, secondly, as she cooled feet in the water her toes were repeatedly “nipped” by small, crayfish-like crustaceans as well as fish nibbling the dead skin from her feet – it’s a different life!

And then, the final leg of this lap of the journey, the last few hundred miles to stay with Sandra’s sister Gill, partner Lawrie and nephews Fletcher and Calum who live just south of Darwin in the wonderfully named Humpty Doo. We now have a week to recuperate and prepare for the next stage of the trip down through Western Australia. The unimportant tasks for me included cleaning mud off the vehicle, getting it serviced, two new batteries, getting the registration sorted out etc. etc. The important tasks for Sandra revolved around getting organised to sell her craft work at local markets. She had an interview for a place at the Parap Market on Saturday and has been offered a stall at the Craft Fair in Darwin. She woke up this morning after a restless night thinking about how to organise her stall and display her goods. Naturally I am full of innovative ideas which generally go down like a series of lead balloons although I think she was overly disparaging towards my brilliant suggestion of taking off the over-size roof rack from the Nissan and converting it into a display stand – some fall on stony ground.

However, before Western Australia and Craft Markets, we are going on holiday – on Monday 14 we fly to Bali for a couple of weeks. As we did last time we went to Bali we have booked an initial few nights accommodation then just see how things pan out from there. Last time we started out in a five star hotel and ended up in a bamboo beach shack – and guess which of these we preferred. I will take the computer but don’t know what internet access will be like so this may be the last blog for a week or so.

In addition to my vehicle related tasks and Sandra’s planning to take the Darwin Arts and Crafts world by storm we spent a very pleasant day with Gill, Lawrie and Calum in Lawrie’s new boat. Two noteworthy events to report - firstly, Sandra steered the boat and even managed to negotiate a bridge without mishap and secondly she went fishing – despite her lifelong assertion that this was a boring, pointless exercise. Personally I think she was a bit miffed because she was the only one not to catch a fish – mind you the fish the others caught (including me who got an interesting yellow and white stripped one) weren’t up to much as all had to be thrown back in as being undersized. This was a problem - no mere pleasure trip, we were hunter/gatherers. We had already gathered bread, salad etc from the supermarket and now we were hunting fish for dinner – if the catch was poor we would go hungry – or, as it turned out, feasted on spag bol.

Finally, for my younger readers, you will be interested to hear that all the toilets in Humpty Doo have a green frog living in them. The frogs hide under the rim and, when someone flushes the toilet, they have to hold on very hard using the big suckers on their feet. These creatures are known as Bog Frogs.