Wow, we'd made it! 
It's amazing what you can do with a bit of effort. And patience. And help.
I can't believe that it was only a few short years ago when I'd bought our little 27 ft. Columbia yacht, and had Jack Finlay help me bring it down to Geelong from Melbourne. I didn't know a halyard from a shroud, and thought a sheet was something on the bed. At the start of our voyage to Darwin from Geelong, Mary had never been outside of Port Phillip Heads.
But we'd made it!

We motored from Fannie Bay around to Tipperary Waters Marina very early in the morning, the 8-metre tides dictating our transit into the welcoming lock gates. 
Ably assisted by Keith the Lockmaster, we were soon tied up at our boat's  Wet Season home, surrounded by big cruising yachts from Hamburg, Tokyo, Auckland and even Apollo Bay! Darwin is a true international port. The skipper of the Japanese boat tied up next to us has circumnavigated the world. Eight times. And Keith the Lockmaster has sailed to Indonesia. Nine times! And I'm sure there's a lot more stories to be told in the marina as we get to know more neighbours.
So we're in fine company, and spent a hot, sweaty week or two preparing the boat to leave in Darwin's extreme weather for the duration of "The Wet". 
We caught up with some old friends during that time, and generally tried to re-acquaint ourselves with the city that we'd enjoyed, and where we'd first met in the early seventies. Gasp!

And in a flush of enthusiasm, I bought a new, bigger outboard motor for the dinghy. (Anybody want a slightly-(ab)used 2 HP Yamaha?)

But we had things to do back home in Torquay, and despite the appeal of just hanging out on the boat and enjoying sundown drinks in the cockpit, we had to clear the decks, tie down the shade covers and head for home, family and the Summer in the South. 
Fortunately, we found a free rental car that needed delivery from Darwin Airport to Melbourne Airport, and were soon heading south by road....some 3000 kilometres or so. It was a nice drive, a different take on Australia to what we'd experienced on the boat, and much easier.

I'd carefully been studying the course to the West of Galiwinku, which is at the southern end of Elcho Island. 
By this stage of the trip, I was completely out of printed paper charts of the region, so was reliant on our Raymarine plotter, and Navionics charts on our iPads and iPhone. The Northern Territory is very poorly charted....some of the areas are just a blank on the charts, some date back to Matthew Flinders' time, and some just say "Inadequately surveyed". 
During WWII, thanks to their fishing fleet, the Japanese had better maps than our own forces, and while I'm sure that the military has a good grasp of the area, the newest, most accurate information has never been offered to the general public. 
(For those reading this blog who may be planning a passage across the top, I do have all of our anchorages and routes saved on my iPad's Navionics app....just give us a call or email if you need the coordinates for them. I haven't bumped into anything substantial so far, and I was pleased to refer to notes from both Esoterica and Gemini Lady in planning our voyage).

So while we would've liked to stop into the Aboriginal settlement of Milingimbi, it was all looking a bit awkward. So, that meant another long haul, west past the Crocodile Islands and all the way to Maningrida, where we'd heard stories about the fantastic art gallery in that settlement. 
Unfortunately, it meant another early start to guarantee a daylight arrival into Maningrida, so it was up-anchor from Galiwinku at 3.30 a.m., around Cape Stewart, across Boucaut Bay and south into the Liverpool River estuary which has the settlement of Maningrida on it's eastern bank. 
It was a long, rough and rolly old day, we spoke with the freight barge off Cape Stewart, and watched a sailing catamaran battling eastwards into the 15 knot headwind and 2 metre seas. And we didn't see another boat all day, until arriving at our destination in the late afternoon and passing the "Coral Princess", a mini-cruise liner, anchored a long way out from the town. 

We tucked as close into the beach as we could, but still sat out a long way because of the depth, and as the wind had swung to the North in the afternoon, it was a very swelly and exposed spot to be. 
But after a 3.30 a.m. start, we were happy enough to stay, once we'd convinced ourselves the anchor had a good grip.
We didn't have an entry permit to visit the community, but the next morning we phoned the art gallery to say we'd like to visit. "No worries" they said, and even sent a crew to pick us up in the ubiquitous Toyota Troop Carrier, it being quite a walk to the gallery itself from the beach.
The gallery was fantastic, really well organised, quality work exhibited cleanly, with a team of people working in the despatch department, packing work to send off all over the world. An excellent act. I had already sniffed around their website www.maningrida.com and was hoping to find a piece that I'd liked on there, and sure enough, it was still on the wall when we arrived. I thought the price....which included shipping to Torquay....was pretty reasonable, so put my credit card down and the deal was done. Unfortunately, there was Funeral Business going on that day, and we missed out on meeting with the artist, Jack Pascoe, but nonetheless, we were stoked with our purchase. 
We'd spent more than the whole shipload of "Coral Princess" passengers from the day before, so were treated as VIP's...which I think we would've been anyway.... and driven around all over the settlement to visit the Womens' Co-Op, pick up groceries, and be cheerfully taken back to the boat when we were ready.

As with most of the aboriginal communities, Maningrida's a rough-looking town, with the car wrecks, mounds of refuse, stray dogs, bored locals hanging out and rundown houses, but for all that it had some kind of infectious optimism about it, was really friendly, and we felt happy to be there. Our knowledge of indigenous culture is woefully absent, but just having been here in the North has made me realise how rich, complex and diverse it is. Great stuff.
So, feeling pleased with ourselves we set off back to the Mother Ship in the dinghy, only to have our little outboard motor behave badly on the ride out. We barely made it, especially in the gusty Northerlies that we were pushing into. The swell and chop was too strong to deal with fixing it so we hauled the dinghy aboard and readied for departure on the following day.

Another magnificent Northern Territory sunset, and a cold beer in the cockpit which I couldn't have had if we were ashore.
Then, an easy day's sail, starting at a leisurely 6.00 am in light breeze, and finishing with a boisterous 25 knot tailwind, to a comfortable anchorage in SouthWest Bay on Goulburn Island. There were two Darwin-based catamarans anchored there, both planning their eastward journey to Queensland, which we didn't envy in the least.

The next day was another easy one for us, continuing west and anchoring at Valentia Island by 1600 hours. 
The following day we'd planned on heading through the Bowen Strait and around to Port Bremer, which is to the east of the mighty Port Essington. 
The highlight of the day was throwing out the fishing line with a trolling lure as we were entering the Bowen Strait, and getting a hit just ten minutes later. A lovely Queenfish, thank you......
And the low point of the day, as we were approaching Port Bremer, was seeing the massive pall of smoke on the eastern side of the harbour, which was blowing across the water and obliterating all visibility. So, we continued on towards Port Essington, roaring along in the strengthening afternoon wind.
We'd thought that we could get into Coral Bay, on the western side of what was a much bigger harbour than I'd imagined. As we approached Coral Bay, the site of the former luxury Seven Spirits Bay resort, we realised that it was probably untenable as an anchorage with this wind pounding it. So, it was a beat back across the harbour into the wind, and the shelter of the vast Berkely Bay on the Eastern side.
We had been getting a little antsy about getting to Darwin, and while we knew that Port Essington had a lot of attractions, and reasons to spend more time, we were taken aback by the sheer size of the place. So we devoted the next couple of days to getting the boat organised for the final run into Darwin. The maintenance list was lengthy, as usual, and included a good cleanup for ourselves, too! A new spark plug on the outboard seemed to solve the problem there, I hoped.

Rounding Cape Don and transiting the Van Diemen Gulf has a bit of a reputation for gnarly seas, raging tidal streams and washing-machine conditions. I studied all of the info I could lay my hands on, and once again we were looking at an ungodly departure hour to ensure a smooth voyage on our final run into Darwin. 
We had an easy daysail to an anchorage in Alcaro Bay, just around the corner from Cape Don, then started our transit in the dark at 2.30 am.
Things were a bit bumpy as we came through the Dundas Strait, but there was no moon and we couldn't see anything anyway. By the time the sun emerged, the wind was almost non-existent, and we had swimming-pool glassy conditions for the rest of the trip. We stuck to the barge route, close by Melville Island, and eventually zoomed through the Clarence Strait, past the NW Vernon Islands, at a healthy 10.9 knots. With no sails up!
From there, it was onwards to Darwin!

It was too late in the day to attempt an entry into the marina we had booked, so we made a beeline for the famous anchorage at Fannie Bay, arriving just in time for another of those famous Darwin sunsets and a sound night's sleep within sight of the yacht club. We didn't bother unloading the dinghy, for several reasons....I didn't know whether the new plug had fixed the motor problem, we had an early departure planned for the marina, and with it's 8-metre tides, it was an awkward proposition landing and retrieving the dinghy from the beach.

Back to sea again, and we up-anchored and motored out of Gove Harbour, rounding Cape Wilberforce in light winds and an easy current, heading across Malay Road for The English Company Islands. Great names! We slipped through the passage between Wigram and Cotton Islands, to a very nice-looking, un-named but rocky little anchorage on Wigram Island. 
A bit of a shock when I emerged onto the deck once the tide had gone out, to see how close we were to a very exposed reef. We probably should've pulled the anchor up and sought out somewhere safer, but conditions were gentle and we didn't seem to be moving, so a good sleep was had by all.
We were in position for a midday approach to the famed Gugari Rip, or The Hole-in-the-Wall, the tiny passage that separates Raragala Island from Guluwuru Island, both of which are aboriginal land and part of the Wessel Islands group.
The Rip is renowned for the strength of the current that runs through there, and timing the run through to go with the tide, or at slack water, is absolutely critical. So we arrived a little earlier than necessary, tooled around a bit, and it looked pretty calm. Then we headed through maybe 20 minutes before the optimum time, against the tide. Which made it pretty easy, despite the boat slowing to just 2 knots at one point, but at least we had steerage, and the wind was calm. 
Once we emerged on the other side, the wind picked up to over 20 knots....which wouldn't have been much fun in the Rip.... and we sailed south to Guruliya Bay.

Guruliya Bay is an absolute beauty. Technically, we weren't really supposed to come ashore onto Aboriginal land without a permit, so when we did go ashore we kept to the beach and avoided tramping around inland. 
A pristine, sandy  beach, and we left the only human footprints. Didn't see any crocodile tracks so felt comfortable enough to swim in the shallows in warm, crystal clear water. Lots of little fish, rays, cone shells, crabs.....totally alone, we really had the sense of being Out There, an amazing feeling. No other boats, no cars, no houses, just pure unspoilt isolation.

Early in the evening when we were relaxing in the cabin, we heard a loud "bang" on the hull, and both ran up on deck to hear/see something big splash in the water alongside the boat. We never saw more than the splash, so don't know what it was, but we weren't planning on a night time swim anyway.
After a couple of idyllic days in Guruliya, it was across Brown Strait and south west to Refuge Bay, on Elcho Island. A broad, open bay which wasn't as cosy or inviting as Guruliya but a safe and comfortable anchorage anyway. And still with a magnificent feeling of isolation.

From there, further down the western side of Elcho Island, to the aboriginal settlement of Galiwinku, and we did have permits to visit the township. We'd anchored offshore, in a fairly blustery offshore wind, and it was a Saturday, with lots of kids on the beach. 
A family, with kids, mums and aunties passed our boat in a big tinnie, and not long after they'd passed, their motor died. With the strong offshore wind, they were steadily blowing out to sea. As we were in the process of launching our dinghy anyway, we though we'd go over to them to see if we could help.
Which proved a little more difficult than we'd thought. Firstly, nobody on the tinnie could speak English, or if they did, they were too shy to speak out. And secondly, our asthmatic little 2HP outboard has enough trouble pushing the dinghy along. 
After throwing them a towline, we soon realised that we were still blowing out to sea and that we weren't capable of towing anybody anywhere. They all had a good laugh about that, and we released the line and let them drift while we headed into the beach. There were a few kids dragging another tinnie to the water's edge, and they were off to rescue their friends. Nobody was in a big hurry.
Once ashore, we had a wander through the streets to the "Bottom Shop", a very small, dusty Chinese-run supermarket that sold a bit of everything, and there's a greasy fast-food outlet next door. We bought some groceries, a cup of chips and some cold soft drinks, upon which we dined sitting at the dilapidated outdoor basketball court.
Galiwinku is pretty down-at-heel and the streets are strewn with rubbish, and every second house seems to have a trashed Toyota Landcruiser or two dumped somewhere around it. But we felt welcome enough, and friendly healthy-looking kids voluntarily directed us around town. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of photographing either the people or the houses, so the camera never came off the boat. I did shoot a pic of the boat at anchor in the beautiful, broad bay in front of the settlement, but that was the only pic I took during the visit.