Another one of our favourite stays, this one was a doozy!
I happened upon the Daly River Wildlife and Adventure Lodge by complete accident. We were looking for the “where next” place to stay, which is about as planned as we get. Of course I’d heard of Daly River before and knew of its reputation for barrumundi and salty’s. There were a lot of places that we could have stayed but the reviews on this place really stood out and they were clearly very good with the family market.
We coincided our arrival with the host kids’ presence (weekends). The kids were similar ages to ours and Ollie in particular has been missing the company of children his age. It couldn’t have worked out better.
We stopped on a roadside stop along the Adelaide River for lunch which was quite lovely but we didn’t see any crocs.
To our absolute delight we were the only ones visiting, and we had the pick of a lovely grassed area under the trees. The boys were soon introduced to the dorper sheep and told to stay well away from the new and very cranky bull that was down in the yards.
I helped to exercise one of the horses in work, the first time I have actually worked a horse in around 15 years. Took a little while but I soon remembered where the buttons were!
I was happy already, but from here things just got better.
The boys helped the host kids pick vegetables out of the gardens. Very soon they came running back asking if they could go out on the ATVs with the host kids to exercise the hunting dogs. We nervously agreed but went around to check it out first.
We found some very happy dogs in protective suits with radio tracking collars, eager to go. Fortunately for our kids no pigs were found. They are very anti feral animals and completely understand the amount of damage they can do, but I’m not sure how they would have coped with killing a pig.
I was able to give Ollie a bit of a horse riding lesson in the round yard and he improved quite a lot. Chase had a little ride too, but he was a bit scared and was ready to get off pretty quickly.
During the day the kids swam in the pool and played with some puppies. Actually three of them packed into the dog crates with the bitch and ten pups. They also learnt to use bow and arrows, shooting them into hay bales just in front of the cranky bull. I’m very glad they didn’t hit him.
That evening we went out on the hosts’ barge down the Daly River. We spotted fresh and salt water crocodiles and some wild buffalo. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours at the end of the day.
Our children loved playing with the host kids and were certainly introduced to a whole range of activities they’d never done before. The next day they messed around with one of the old 4WDs and in the afternoon we went out with the family on the back of the cut down 4WD and ATV’s. We were driven around the back country by twelve year old Sam and he did a really good job. The boys took turns to ride on the back of the ATV that was being driven by 9 year old Zeb.
We spent a couple of hours driving enjoying our surroundings. Along the way we drove the old track that once serviced as the Darwin Road. We visited the site of the Daly River Copper Mine, pretty much a few holes in the ground and an old boiler. Pete, our host told us that you could often spot rock wallabies in the quarry and we did see one when we first arrived. What we didn’t expect to find was an olive python barely able to move, its sides bulging presumably with an unlucky wallaby. We were all amazed at the size of its meal.
We also saw a large group of kangaroos and a healthy looking mob of brumbies.
We finished the night with a dip in the pool, country music blaring with the kids using the ATV as a diving board into the water. We’d had a great day and the boys were sorry that the host kids were back off to Darwin for school early Monday morning.
We managed to have one quiet day where we mainly hung around the pool and did some work on the caravan and our ailing bikes. We drove into Nauiyu (Daly River) community to buy a few supplies. We visited the Merrepen Art Gallery and the kids both bought a small piece of Aboriginal artwork. We walked over the new Daly River bridge and croc spotted along the banks. We saw a lot of sea life including stingray, gummy shark, small barramundi and other fish and much to our amazement a sawfish. We later found a sign telling us the the sawfish were disappearing in alarming numbers and our host was also very surprised that we’d seen one.
We enjoyed a drink at the Daly River pub which gave us a great outlook over the river including three large salt water crocodiles and the old causeway. We could see lots of children on the causeway and we were sure we could hear them also playing in the water. We crossed the causeway in our car and stopped to watch the local Aboriginal kids swimming in the rapids through the culverts under the crossing, just three hundred meters away from those very large crocs. I wondered about how close the ones we couldn’t see might be. Concern us back at the Lodge was that a child would get eaten one day.
Our last full day in Daly River was also a good one. Pete invited us to have a go at working the poddy cows. We had to move six cows from the large yard into a small holding area. He taught us how to move the cows by putting pressure on their comfort zones and when to walk away. It was difficult but patience was the name of the game and Pete was a good teacher The boys managed to get 4 out of 6 of the cows away. Drew and I managed to get them all away. We learnt a lot about cow psychology and training that day.
We drove out to the large billabong on the property, hoping to see some of the big crocs that live there. We didn’t see anything and it was a beautiful place filled with bird life, but the thought of what lay beneath the waters kept us well back from the edge.
We cycled up to the top of honeymoon hill to watch the sunset; it seemed a fitting way to end our stay.
We feel so privileged to have been able to stay here for a few days and are truly thankful for the hospitality of our hosts.
Touring in a tin can 