Day 7 Sunday.

Father’s Day and Rhon had brought me a beautiful card all the way from home. Then she whipped up boiled eggs on toast and a cuppa. Lovely way to start the day.

We did have an interestingly night though. Yesterday was an annual festival with many indigenous folk in town to celebrate. At the camp office in the morning one of the staff suggested we lock up at night because of ‘strangers in town’. As most of you are aware, we rarely lock our door at home. Also we were sleeping in the van so didn’t think security would be an issue. About 3am I woke up for toilet duty and noticed the front left hand door of the van was open wide. Then I noticed two plastic bags hanging out of the door and on the grass. My heart just lurched as I jumped out of the van and looked into the front seat area, noticing that our suitcase, which we put in the front at night, had been opened. Then I checked in the front console where I usually keep my wallet and found it empty. By this time Rhon was awake, and i was hunting around not finding things like IPads, Rhon’s handbag etc etc. Expletives filled the air and we both just sat shattered on the bed wondering what the hell we were going to do.

Then in the half light I noticed our IPads on the kitchen bench, then my wallet, then Rhon’s handbag, then found the plastic bags had been pulled out of the case but still had clothes inside. Long story short - the only thing missing was a pair of binoculars. So we changed into some clean undies, locked all the doors, and went back to sleep. Should mention that we have no idea who the intruders were. We didn’t see them. But the campground staff didn’t need to see them to know what colour they would have been.?

Tomorrow we are off on a full day tour into Arnhem Land so we are looking forward to that.

So just some info on drinking laws in Northern Territory. No matter where you go, when you purchase alcohol of any sort, you must produce your driver’s licence or some official ID. This is
then scanned to check if you are on a database of people who are banned from buying booze.

At the caravan park, you are issued with a pass and must present this at the bar  if you want a drink. The bar is in the pool complex and also serves meals and snacks from 4 to 9 pm - it has a gated fence around it. You can buy booze to take out of the pool compound but are restricted to 6 stubbies or one bottle of wine per night. You have to sign a register when you do this so that you can’t go back for seconds. The other Caravan Park in town serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, but no alcohol, although you can bring your own limited amount.

These rules and regs apply to the whole community not just Indigenous folk.

Just a couple of photos in the camping ground. Ours is the one with the Britz logo. Found it very good. Not a lot of room inside when the bed is made up, but we are never inside except at night so we leave the bed made up. Now we sleep with the back hatch door open to start with so we get the cooler evening breeze through the van, then close up during the night when the temp drops to a chilly 20C.