Backwards to Berry Springs 2 - 5 Sept

Berry Springs is back closer to Darwin, but we hadn’t managed to get there when we were in Darwin and we needed a shopping day before striking out for the Kimberly in West Australia.  We stayed at the Tumbling Waters caravan park which was fantastic.  The park was just down the road from our two main destinations, Berry Springs and the Territory Wildlife Park, but it was a great deal of fun in its own right.  This park has its own crocodiles, restaurant, movie nights, ranger visits (with animals) from the wildlife park, markets (made up stalls from residents) – we really enjoyed our time here.  

The Berry Springs part of Berry Springs

Berry Springs is a thermal spring and waterhole.  There are two large waterpools fed by a spring via a small waterfall at one end.  The water isn’t as clear as Bitter Springs but we could still see some fish.  We had a lovely time here topped off with a round of icecreams from the kiosk.

View through a waterfall

Hello from under the waterfall

We had one more place to see in Berry Springs - but I will handover to the best reporters for that job.  Berry Springs is a our last stop in the NT.  The next blog entry will be from the Kimberley!

TERRITORY WILDLIFE PARK – by Mr L and Mr  C               

  

Hello buddies – its Mr C and Mr L again.  This time we want to tell you about our visit to the Territory Wildlife Park.

We began our day with getting our picture taken with a baby crocodile and blue tongue lizard, but we didn’t buy them because mum and dad said they were too expensive

Then we went on a train – a train that goes on roads – to the aquarium.  In the aquarium there was a BIG salt water crocodile on a slope so you got to see how the croc breathes when it is in water.  Did you know estuarine crocs have three eyelids to help them see underwater.  

People had made a display of jelly fish made from old fishing nets as a lesson not to leave your nets out in the water where they can hurt fish.  The jelly fish looked amazing.

We did a walk through the aviaries which were alive with birds and animals.  There were little aviaries and then a giant aviary at the end.  The little aviaries had all types of birds from different areas.  The big aviary had birds that ran across the walkways, some flying in the air, some perched, there were tonnes all over the place.  The birds were noisy all making different sounds and calls.  I really like the azure kingfisher because it was so colourful with its yellow chest and its blue back and tail feathers.

Next we went to the Oolloo sandbar where we saw a ranger feeding whiprays. A whipray is a fresh water stingray from the NT. They are huge growing up to 1,8 metres across.

After the oolloo sand bar we caught the train to the flight deck to catch the next show.  At the flight deck there were lorikeets, curlew, jabiru, kite, osprey and a pheasant cuckal doing its first public performance. We got to meet a peregrine falcon and a wedge tail eagle after the show.  The peregrine falcon belonged to the army and is higher in rank that one of her handlers.  We wondered if the handler has to salute the bird.  If they did that would be very funny :)

 

At the nocturnal house the lights were dimmed purposefully so we could see all the wildlife that is active at night.  But sadly we didn’t see all the wildlife because sometimes the lights were too dim – we couldn’t find the tawny frogmouth.  However we did see frogs, owls, marsupials, a childrens python, death adder, olive python, ghost bats, spotted quoll, blossom bat and a giant cockroach.

Magnificent Tree Frog

The day was excellent.  The flight deck was the best, but the rays were awemazing.  We were going to spend a few hours but stayed the whole day and still didn’t see everything.

Some serious photography going on here

 We totally recommend a visit to the territory wildlife park!