Berry Springs - Northern Territory

Thursday - Today we moved back into partial suburbia, having left Litchfield we headed towards Darwin and ended up at Berry Springs which is about one and half hours southwest, we cannot get into the caravan park at Howard Springs until Saturday, when we did the planning we didn't realise it was NT school holidays so we thought it safer to book as we will be in Darwin for 5 nights, booking somewhere does leave you with less flexibility in your travel plans. We booked into The Lakes CP which is not that flash, they write them up better than what they are, but we only need a place to sleep so we will put up with it.

We decided to go to Mandorah which is on the western side of Darwin Harbour, as we found out there is not much there except a pub and ferry terminal. The pub was the go for lunch, the Barra and salad was pretty good and the beer was cold, you know your in the top end when they ask if you want a "cooler" (Stubby holder) with your beers.

On the way back we came across a WWII site of a crashed Liberator Bomber, it crashed on a  training run in 1942, only the previous week it had encountered and shot down 2 Japanese fighters whilst returning from a mission to Java. You had to go a fair way into the scrub to find the site.

On our way back we went to Berry Springs Nature Park, there are swimming holes, one thing you can say for the NT Dept of Conservation, they look after their parks. It was well set out with plenty of BBQ and areas where families could picnic, also access to the pools was excellent with concrete steps and proper access ladders. At 4.30pm the temperature was still 30 degrees so the swim was very refreshing, tomorrow we are going to head out the Arnham Hwy towards the Adelaide river to look at the jumping croc's and other touristy things.