Day 25 Parap Markets

Today we walked around the corner to the Parap Markets to browse the stalls of local produce, local arts and crafts, entertainment and delicious cuisine from around the world. It was nice not to have try and find a park as it was a very popular market.




We went into the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, they had examples of street art and the most amazing video of all the art around Darwin.




We then drove to Berry Springs National Park where beautiful natural pools and a warm springs, surrounded by stunning tropical plants and trees is found. The location is known as Laniyuk by the indigenous Kungarakany people and must have been a great place for rejuvenation, then as well as today. The water is very clear. The combination of it being a Sunday and school holidays here as well as being 32oC made it a very busy swimming hole today, so we chose not to swim ourselves.





As we drove back towards Darwin it was interesting to see the difference in the management of the forests and lands here in the Northern Territory compared to those at home. For days we have past many places that have had slow cool fires go through clearing the land, and in some cases still burning beside the road. We have to remember that it is winter here, even though it seems like summer to us, so the perfect time to burning fires. It has been long enough ago to see just how the plants thrive and regenerate afterwards in some areas.




We crossed the Elizabeth River which flows into Darwin Harbour. It is a traditional waterway of the Larrakia people. Peak flow for the Elizabeth River occurs in February with 389 ML per day, after which it slowly decreases until July, when there is no freshwater input into Darwin Harbour until the onset of the following wet season. It is an extremely big river and very popular with the fisherman.




We then called into Charles Darwin National Park the lookout platform has sweeping views of Darwin's ever developing skyline.




On the way home we drove around Fisherman's Wharf.