Page 34 - Our Favourite Walks by Brian Everingham

The years passed, and my son and his wife had a little boy and lived on base at HMAS Cerberus on
Western Port Bay, Victoria. It is June 2014. My son now worked externally for the NT Government.
I asked Marj to join Ben and me to go back to The Monoliths. Soon the daughter-in-law and my
husband decided, as they had heard so much about this amazing place, that this was too good an
opportunity to miss and decided to join us. The grandson was flown to North Qld to be with his
other grandmother. We met up in Darwin. I had driven to the Territory this time in a Mazda BT50
with slide on Active Camper.

What a time in the Territory. I had just spent 8-10 days with Brian Everingham and NPA NSW folk
on the Larapinta Trail. There is so much to see and do in the Territory and it’s a shame to rush it.

Marj planned that as I was older and slower, but as it turned out the young ones were even less fit
than us, we would drive to Garnamarr Campground and camp the night before. This then gave us a
full day to get to The Monoliths.

There were a number of periods of ‘knackeredness’ along the route to The Monoliths but the effort
was worth it. Three nights in the one camp, with explorations out each day led by Marj, who knew
exactly where to take us to see the best, the diversity of and the most prolific rock art sites, views,
landscapes and plants. In between it was a life of gentleness and peace around the camp, starting
with swims before breakfast, followed by the exploration and then later in the day complete with
the many cups of tea, snoozing on the rocks in the shade, reading, electronic games (the young
ones) and Sudoku.

Father and son at The Monoliths.

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