Day 54 – Darwin

We had a slower morning today – Debbie headed off to Lifeblood to donate some plasma, and the kids and I enjoyed our bacon & eggs breakfast that the place we’re staying in had generously left for us.

Mid morning, we headed down to Pudakul, a beautiful Aboriginal family business who operate cultural tours and a bunch of other experiences of their land and community, just down the road from Humpty Doo. On a whim, we saw a brochure yesterday and thought it would be a really fun thing to do with the kids before the Jumping Crocodile tour today (as it’s nearby). We ended up spending the most wonderful 90 mins with Celina at Pudakul. Not only did she share a bit about the art styles their people use (and it was great to understand the differences between here and what we learnt at Top Didj), but as we sat there and painted, she spent the whole time sitting with us and just chatting and sharing openly about their family and community who live just down the road. It was great to learn about how they’re still keeping their culture alive through the current generations, and still prioritising living on the land here in their community, but also balancing that with wanting to see her 15 mth old son go to school locally when he gets older.

It was the most surreal experience, and we left feeling like we’d spent hours there with Celina. As well as our little paintings, which were heaps of fun, she generously shared a little gift for each of the kids and us – some little money pouches and can coolers that had designs on them that her Dad had painted. She also invited us back later in the month for a small festival that they have, aimed a lot at kids, with a bunch of fun experiences! We would’ve loved to be there for that – unfortunately we just don’t have the flexibility in the trip to make that happen. We were just overwhelmed by how welcome we felt, and how much we learnt in such a short amount of time. If you’re ever up in Darwin, we can’t recommend their experiences highly enough.

We headed another 15 minutes down the road to the Jumping Crocodile Cruise. We got our boarding passes, and then sat in the shade and had our lunch while we waited for our 1pm tour to roll around. We headed out on a pretty full boat, but still with plenty of room to move around and see the crocs – both upstairs and downstairs. We only had to head a few hundred metres up the Adelaide River before the first croc came over to the boat – they definitely know how this all works, and are keen for their dose of meat. Someone asked about whether they become reliant on the food they get from the boat – but the guide said that these few pieces of meat that they feed them wouldn’t even make up 5% of their diet.

We moved through a few different areas of the river, each 500m or so of river is the domain of a dominant male saltwater croc. Interestingly, there were a few male crocs also hanging around (which the guide called “bachelors” – because they have no female partners who they look after, and they also have no place of their own), and so each time they came for food, they had to be quick before the more dominant croc came close. Some of the crocs that made their jumps were just incredibly huge. Such powerful tails and bodies to lift out of the water! The kids absolutely loved it.

This afternoon, the kids spent some time on FaceTime with a few of their closest friends. They absolutely loved having a bit of time to catch up and chat with them. And now, we’re having a quiet evening at home catching up on a bit of Lego Masters together.