My last entry saw us heading towards Tumbling Waters at Berry Springs in The Northern Territory. Well, three months later and we are now pulling out of the park and are on the road again.

We have had such a great stay here as always, where the time goes so quickly shared with so many good friends, some from previous years and some new. 

This blog entry can pretty much read like previous years here with us doing all the usual things but this year we reminisced on last year’s memories when Jo, Phil and the girls were here, joining in with our crowd. Where did that year go?

There’s never a dull moment here as we continue to join in with all the activities. Bingo, (I won a few times!) trivia and a first for me, Tai Chi. I was persuaded by Jenny the park owner to encourage some of our crowd, to participate. Not know for someone who enjoys many forms of exercise, (apart from a good stroll) I did manage to get a few people interested (Di, Kris, Helen and Kathy) and to join in but I was the only one who consistently went every week. I can’t say I really enjoyed it but it was a gentle form of exercise, quite relaxing and got me out of bed early on a Tuesday morning! Chris had his games of golf at the Humpty Doo golf course and he enjoyed an evening at the cricket in Darwin with Richard, Helen, Pete, Kathy and Robbie. Australia v South Africa where apparently the Aussies played terrible. 

A lot of our time here seems to revolve around food with lunches out including The Noodle Bar in Darwin, the Japanese in Palmerston, and Crab Claw Island to name a few and with dinners at Seafood on Cullen and our regular Sunday night dinner at the in-house restaurant before trivia. We had many a good happy hour with plenty of food at lots of them, courtesy of the hamper which was always first prize at the trivia night. Yes, one or other of our teams won a few times! That hamper would do two good happy hours for all our group and Chris would get the job of turning the smoke trout into a pate which was always popular. We had our Christmas in July celebrations with beautiful food and secret Santa presents for everyone, and we celebrated the few birthdays with more food. Any excuse! I had my birthday a few days ago and this was celebrated on the Saturday evening along with Pete and Ginn’s 51st wedding anniversary and farewells to those of us leaving soon. This was a great evening and ended up with singing and a few of us doing the Nutbush and Macarena. Ant and Vic who work at the park joined in with us as well. They were the not so young youngsters to us oldies. A great night!

First overnight stop is Pussycat Flats at Pine Creek where we have stayed many times before and then we’ll take our time heading back towards the east coast by about mid September. Then it will be time to get ready for our big family holiday to Vanuatu as Chris and I celebrate our golden wedding anniversary. It’s a family holiday fifty years in the making as the ten of us fly out of Brisbane on the 29th. I can’t wait.