Due to the limited caravan sites available within the Edith Falls park we were forced to park our van with the door-side facing east. Wherever we can afford it we opt to position it west, at worst, but prefer the van to run to run east-west with a northern aspect. I know it sounds a little picky but when confronted with a glaring sun at 6am in the morning it can really tarnish your day – especially when sweat starts dripping into your cornflakes.

So, instead of taking a “grin-and-bare-it” attitude we opted to move the van into the day-use area where we could position it with the sun behind us. We even scored a shaded patch of grass where we could eat our breakfast in relative comfort and take our time preparing for the trip ahead. We even took another dip at the waterfall – Deb included (it must have been hot!)

As we headed out of the park towards the main road we enjoyed the splendour of the rocks lining the route. These huge boulders seemed to be poised tentatively upon each other as though they had been stacked this way when first created. Needless to say we had to stop and let the boys get a photo while standing on top of these gorgeous monoliths.

From there we headed back onto the Stuart Hwy and north towards Darwin. After passing a plethora of WWII historic sites we decided to stop at Adelaide River and visit their War Cemetery. These are always interesting places to gauge portions of the historic picture and this memorial was no different. After reading the placarded information at the entry we went in search of the only Canadian servicemen to be buried here in a macabre “Where’s-Wally?” kind of way. Admittedly, it took us until almost the last line of headstones before we found him but reading the gravestones before was a very sobering affair.

Back in the car we made the final jaunt into Darwin, our last capital city. While it had changed somewhat since I was here twenty years ago the city was still relatively small compared to our other capitals but more charming in many ways. We drifted through the traffic – at worst it got out to three lanes – and found ourselves driving around the waterfont before parking a few streets back. The plan was to visit the tourist bureau and research what parts of Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks were open and where we could still swim – croc-free.

After a quick loo-break we were back in the car and heading out of town to one of the local caravan parks. Once set up we enjoyed a late lunch and then took a quick tour of the city; firstly to the famed waterpark (which wasn’t open until Wednesday) and then detouring to Casuarina Shopping Centre – their biggest shopping precinct.

We spent a few hours here enjoying the air-conditioned comfort and visiting some of their stores. We even pondered buying some fans for the van but weren’t quite sure whether to go with 12V or 240V. We left the decision for another day realising that either choice was going to have some serious ramifications to our energy usage and our desired comfort levels!