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Monday 21 June 2010

The Lost City











Monday, 21st June

The shortest day!

Caravan parks are always full of excitement – such as the driver of a brand new Toyota Prado who decided to see if palm trees bend when backed into. Palm trees don’t, but Prados do! Then there was the rather generously proportioned young lady running wildly through the park, waving her arms madly. Dashed up to us, “Give me your mobile phone, quick.” Refusal – what is the emergency? “I need your phone to make an urgent call.” What is the emergency? “Quick, give it to me.” What is the emergency? “My husband has driven out, I have changed my mind and want to go with him now.” Go to reception and use the public phone!!!

Yesterday evening we decided, along with a couple next to us, to take advantage of the free cocktail each, so headed for the Deaf Adder Bar before cooking dinner. The free cocktail was very heavy on an aniseed liquor (yuck!) and highly desirable to every fly in a 100 metre radius. After chasing flies continually off the straw and out of the inside of the glass, I left it on the table. The men had beers, quite sensibly.

This morning it was out of bed early for ALL of us so we could drive to the Lost City before it became too hot. We called into the Rum Jungle Lake on the way – quite a nice area with a number of people camped in the “Camping Prohibited” area. No one waved to us.

We had only just started down the 4WD track to the Lost City when we came upon a young couple walking. They were Americans, so we offered them a lift (10.5 kms to the Lost City), the young man refused but his female companion nearly fell into the car! They were a couple of final year medical students from Florida in Australia for a fortnight and very quickly realised what a long walk 10.5 kms is – each way. The Lost City had been burnt out recently (no doubt deliberately to reduce growth), which did detract somewhat from the rock formations. However, we were glad we went and the Americans were also glad we went; we gave them a lift back to the turn off and their car.

Monday night is bowls night in Batchelor, so we decided to check out the club as a game might be a pleasant way to fill in the evening (too hot during the day). After seeing the green, we have decided to watch “Desperate Housewives” instead. The green was probably more dirt than grass, what grass there was included long, seedy weeds and the rabbits had been having a lovely time.

During a long chat with the caravan park’s groundsman this afternoon, he was more than happy to tell us that it is definitely snake season – a large brown snake was killed in the park just last week!
The final photo is an example of the elephant (or gamma) grass that grows as a weed in the area - anothe reason for controlled burnoffs.

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