Day 16: Batchelor - Kakadu National Park

The kids wake up just before 7 o'clock. This is perfect for the bird feeding at 7:30. Next to the reception, the little parrots and cockatoos are being fed with milk.

We empty our wastewater, the toilet and fill up the fresh water before we head towards Darwin. At the telephone booth in the center of Batchelor, we try to reach the depot in Darwin, but it is still closed until 10 o'clock. On the rest of the drive, our call becomes unnecessary as all the lights that have been on are now off and the battery is working again.

We drive back to the shopping center in Palmerston and get a mini tripod and a SIM card for the phone. Then we continue towards Kakadu National Park. On the drive, we see many construction sites (our little mischief is always excited about them) and unfortunately also some dead kangaroos on the roadside. We make better progress than we thought (probably also due to the straight roads and therefore higher speed) and still drive into Kakadu National Park (originally we wanted to stay at the park border).

The temperatures today are extreme. The thermometer in the camper shows an incredible 38.5 degrees during the drive. It was already over 30 degrees early in the morning. Around noon, our battery fails again. We slowly suspect that it has to do with the temperatures, as it usually causes problems at noon.

Around 3 o'clock we arrive at Aurora Kakadu Resort. We book a room for one night and also buy our national park pass (costs 25 AUD per person for 7 days). This campsite is also very simple (but also significantly cheaper than the others) and has a large pool. There is also little going on here. Besides us, there are 3 other cars on the campsite.

At the pitch, we immediately activate our air conditioning and prefer to eat our ice cream inside the camper. Unfortunately, there are lots of mosquitoes here. We rest a bit, the kids play, and it rains outside. When the shower is over, we visit the pool.

Since we discovered sauerkraut in a can at the supermarket, today we have sausages (beef) with sauerkraut for a change.

November 8, 2016

Accommodation: Aurora Kakadu Resort (1 night, 20 AUD, simple facility with large pool and electricity)

Weather: sunny to cloudy, rain in the late afternoon, 38.5 degrees

272 kilometers for the day out of a total of 586 km