Back to life in Humpty Doo - with Crabs and The Rolling Stones

We arrived back in Humpty Doo from Bali and the first job, at least for Sandra, was a messy, smelly one – preparing crabs. Lawrie had taken Johann and Stretch out in his boat on a fishing expedition and, whilst the fish were being a bit reticent, there was no such reluctance from the crabs which were queuing up to get into the crab pots – and they were big ones. With Johann and Sandra wielding hammers the meat was separated from the inedible parts whilst various crab based recipes were discussed – the smell hung around for days!

Hammering Crabs

Sandra and I took a day trip to the relatively close Litchfield National Park and found it to be heaving with tourists, particularly the campsites. It is a well known Australian phenomenon that during the colder months (a relative term for those of us hailing from Scotland) there is a mass migration from southern parts to the more tropical north. A look at the registration plates of cars in carparks and campsites revealed that 90% of visitors were from outwith the area. We avoided the more popular sites – usually those at the swimming holes – refusing to queue for parking and not particularly wanting to cavort with busloads of old age pensioners on coach trips. We were able to visit some of the slightly more remote sites including a very interesting tin mine which closed down over half a century ago leaving the slowly rusting machinery in place. We also came across some weird looking plants called Cycads – plants which “outlived the dinosaurs” - which probably wouldn't have been very difficult as apparently no dinosaur remains have been found in this part of Australia!

One of the Litchfield National Park Waterfalls

Sandra trekking in Litchfield National Park

The weird Cycad - which "outlived the dinosaurs"

Remains of the Bamboo Creek Tin Mine in Litchfield NP

Although we didn't swim on our trip to Litchfield we have been able to cool down on several visits to the idyllic Berry Springs. When all the crocs have been cleared out after the wet season it is a very popular place for family outings and not too far from Gill's house – highly recommended at certain times of the year, best avoided at others.

Berry Springs where we swam - "What crocs?"

One of the highlights of last week was the outing to the Rolling Stones Tribute Band at the Humpty Doo Pub. As we were getting to the end of our stay Sandra, myself, Johann and Stretch went out with Gill and Lawrie for a meal at Humpty Doo Golf Club. It was going like a fair with probably well over a hundred diners and is obviously the place to go for a meal out in this area – my local golf club back home could only dream of the turnover. And apparently it's like that every night of the week. Then on to the Rolling Stones.

A dodgy lot watching the "Rolling Stones"

"Keef"

Johann putting it about to "Let's Spend the Night Together"

Gill and Lawrie

"The Girls" - Johann, Gill and Sandra

Another highlight was Territory Day on the 1^st July. In Australia you cannot normally buy fireworks for domestic use – except in Northern Territory, and then only on 1^st July between 9am and 9pm and they are supposed to be used by midnight on that same day. Consequently the local population go mad – queuing up to buy armloads of pyrotechnics with an emphasis on as much “BOOM” for ones buck as possible. As Gill said “In a few hours this place will be like Beirut on a bad night” - and it was! Not wanting to be out done, we had a whip round and headed off to the local Didgeridoo shop which once a year does a roaring side line in fireworks, and spent $60 on two fireworks – but they were BIG ones – and contributed to the local mayhem. The midnight deadline was severely breached and in fact we were woken up at 6am by a number of explosions which I took to be fireworks although, this being Northern Territory, they might have been anything.

Our contribution of Armageddon Humpty Doo style

The final highlight of this posting was a trip out to the annual madness of the 40^th Beer Can Regatta and Thong Throwing Competition at Mindil Beach on Sunday. Over 15,000 people turned out to watch the regatta where boats, made out of beer cans, race each other. With some of the boats being made up of over 1000 beer cans sourcing the raw materials must have been a tortuous but pleasurable task for the crews. Lawrie, in keeping with the spirit of the event, wore his Captain Morgan pirate hat much to the disgust of the rest of his family – although as he was still celebrating his birthday, he was given a certain amount of latitude.

The Beer Can Regatta - some boats were impressive ......

...... others less so!

Finally, after hearing animal-like noises outside our tent at night and suspecting possums, a trap was set. The following morning we found that we had captured one of Australia's most fearsome marsupials – a Bandicoot – a particularly vicious specimen as can be seen from the photograph.

The "vicious" Bandicoot