So it was early in August and we were thinking of our next adventure. Having endured some cold spells looking for wombats on the Eyre Peninsula (but had thoroughly enjoyed it) and our local weather requiring multiple layers of clothing, we thought “Let’s go somewhere warm this time”.

We had heard that Darwin was a pretty warm place to be at this time of year and so the planning started.

The idea of having an itinerary all planned out in advance had worked really well for us on the peninsula, it had prevented the 3 o’clock “Where the heck are we going to stay tonight?” issues, or the “Wow if we had known that had existed it would have been good to go see it” regrets. So we started the research, armed with knowledge of our previous Darwin trip (even if that had been way back in 2006), and taking time to watch hours of Youtube to see what would appeal to us.

As it turns out, what a family does and sees is roughly equivalent to what we would probably enjoy. So to all the youtubers out there who post online what they get up to…. Thank you. Now we had ideas what to do, where to go and what not to do!

Anyway in early September the day finally came, I had an itinerary all set out, we knew were we would be camping each night, had even gone as far as booking or reserving a couple of campgrounds and caravan parks, (just be sure we could get in). There is so much to see and do, but we figured that history and nature would be present in bucketfuls and a good aiming point, with whatever else cropping up along the way as a bonus.

We had no intention of covering all the entire NT as it would take us a lot longer, and so much would possibly be inaccessible to Little Bus so we created a map, not very complicated but it shows you our route that we intended on taking and the areas covered.

Jo having booked 3 weeks holidays was itching to go now, and not at all counting down each day left until we could pack Little Bus, lock the doors and bugger off…….. and bugger off we did ….. one day early!

It meant that we could have taken the coastal route up to Darwin, but with only three weeks to do it all in we opted for the cannon ball run style and, drawing breath, headed straight up the Gt Northern Highway.

So with my OCD on the back burner we quickly threw in an extra day, (decided having a day in Karijini might be nice…. maybe even an early September swim?) and it wouldn’t throw out the itinerary at all….. well not too much!

We were still planning on free camping it wherever possible, especially on the way up and back putting in the long days on the road, and our first camp was Lake Nallan, a place that we had driven past multiple times in the past and never even knew it existed, about 20 km north of Cue. It wasn’t even on our map!

The place was awesome to say the least, and perhaps the reason we had never noticed it was that Lake Nallan is often dry, and no more than a patch of caked dry mud in the bottom of a depression, but not this year, it was brimming full. And the surrounding area was all green and lush. So we bounced in the couple of hundred metres of gravel and parked up, under a tree, in the shade, thought “This will do” and turned off the engine.

We pulled out the chairs, even put the rug down, opened a bottle of red to celebrate being on holiday and felt all our cares drifting away. Peaceful, serene and the quiet lapping of the water at the shore complimented the relaxation that we had felt seeping into our bones. With the sun threatening to go down, we had time to go for a quick walk around the shore, quite a ways actually and returned just after sundown, for a night lulled to sleep by the gurgle of waves and the occasional passing road train on the highway.

Next morning was a spectacular sunrise over the water…. who needs to go to the east coast to see that when we have it in placves like this!

We then fired up Little Bus and headed off up the road towards Newman, and more adventure!

Stay tuned for next time when we visit Dales Gorge, battle with the flies, swim in freezing water and discover a problem with our fridge!