Who was Gregory? Apparently he took a ship from Brisbane around the coast and then up the Victoria river as far as here, where he set up a camp for 12 months while he explored the local area. Then no the 2nd of July 1856 he set off overland back to Brisbane.

Hence the Gregory National Park, which has now been renamed Judbarra.

After a steep walk up to the escarpmen, and then scrambling over rocks along the base of the escarpment, we were rewarded with finding some rock art and even a little explanation.

During the dreamtime beings that were both animal and human, and could change form, left their images on the rocks. These images were traced over and are the images we see today. This frog with a human head now makes sense.

The first green shoots after the fire.

So we are in Darwin.

We did find the port area with a couple of displays regarding the original bombing of Darwin. I hadn't really realised how big a military exercise it was by the Japanese. They had close to 200 aircraft involved in the two raids on the first day of bombing. I still thought it was small group who got lucky when the harbour was caught by surprise and largely undefended.

We did go to the Mindel Beach Sunset Markets yesterday evening. Lots of different things to choose from for tea.

This is the Darwin Aviation Museum. Quite unassuming from the outside with an apron of derelict aircraft, but it was well set up and interesting on the inside.

I think that is an Orion on the apron, I am not sure what it is doing here.

The B 52 takes up most of the hanger and is impressive.

The iconic nose of the F111.

Yes it is getting warm, but it is also getting quiet - most of the southern tourists have left.

We had no trouble getting a powered site at the Corroboree Tavern even though it was their 30th birthday celebration. The cruise we booked was less than half full.

The edges of the billabong had lots of these large lotus lily pads.

I was probably disappointed that we didn't see mum and dad but there were a pair of young Jabirus on the shore and the guide later pointed out their nest way in the distance.

We saw several Auzure Kingfishers and this Forest Kingfisher. As you can see they are pretty small and this was the best shot I got of them.

There are some other larger bird shots in the gallery on the home page.

This fellow was at least 4m. Even though we were in a big boat I was pretty uncomfortable being as close as we were. The croc on the other hand gave no indication of being intimidated by us at all.

Again see the home page galleries for more crocodile photos.

Well it was a sunset cruise. We had a nice evening, fresh and salt water crocodiles, lots of birds, flowering lilies, and a sunset 🙂

We found the infamous Cahill's Crossing just next to the Ubirr rock arts sites. Is it a vehicle crossing or a "crocodile" crossing?

There certainly was no problem spotting a croc in the time we were there.

I am not sure how deep the crossing gets at high tide, but it was pretty low while we were there and consequently there was a reasonable amount of traffic traversing it. No we didn't take Clifford across.

The Crossing is quite a tourist attraction in its own right. This bus driver let their passengers out on the far side. On our side the southern side there is a large viewing area high up on the bank well out of the water.

Yes there were a couple of blokes flicking lures when we first got there. They seemed to be pretty croc aware though and were standing well away from the water.

Some places are forbidden for aboriginal people. This painting is a warning to people of the consequences of disturbing the stones at a site  on the East Alligator river. You will contract Miyamiya - an illness that results in swollen bones as shown in this picture.

The Ubirr site is a series of art sites in close proximity to each other. Some like this are just a few paintings under a over hang.

The main gallery is a huge wall full of large pieces of art such as these x-ray drawings of fish.

As well as showing an x-ray artwork of a kangaroo it also shows a "white-fella".  This man's hands disappear into the pockets of his trousers, his feet are encased in boots.

Another white man in this shot - except he is painted in yellow ochre. As well as hands in pockets he is smoking a pipe.

The previous two pieces of art can't be very old as they show white men. While not clear in the Centre of this shot is a figure that appears to be a Thylacine ( a dog figure with stripes at the rear) Speculation is that several thousand years ago there were Thylacines in the top end and that this painting is thousands of years old.

This art work is a prompt for a story about not stealing. Short story is this man (Mabuyu) had caught some fish and while he was carrying them back to camp they were stolen. When the thieves retired to a cave after eating the stolen fish he sealed the cave up and they all died. Moral don't steal.