Mid Semester Break Part 2- Darwin 4/15-4/19

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Wednesday April 15th- There was no rest for the weary as we had just gotten in the previous night around midnight. I hadn’t gotten to bed until about 3am doing laundry, packing, etc for my noon flight. I woke up at 8:30am, showered, and finished gathering all of my trip stuff. I met Brian at 9:45am at Chancellor’s Place (the main bus stop at UQ) to catch our taxi at 10am. We arrived at the airport around 1030am and checked in for our flight. Talk about having no security, I was able to print out my boarding pass for not only the flight to Darwin, but also the flight back to Brisbane. Had I not checked a bag at no point would I have had to show any form of ID. It’s definitely a different way of life. I can’t say it’s very comforting. At any rate, Brian and I walked around the terminal killing time and went on a hunt for scones. The one thing which is great in Australia is the scones with jam (jelly but its called jam here) and cream (whipped cream). After we ate we killed some more time and made our way to the terminal. The flight left at 12:15pm. The flight was about 4 hours and we arrived in Darwin at 3:45pm. There is a 30 minute time difference between Brisbane and Darwin. I have no idea who comes up with these things. Needless to say the first thing I did was change the time on my phone when we landed. We collected our bags and caught a shuttle which took us to our hotel. While I was checking in Brian collected a bunch of pamphlets of tours for us to look over. We had Thursday and Friday decided on, but we had an open day on Saturday which we had to plan for. By 5pm we were in our room relaxing and relishing in the air conditioning (I had been outside for about 5 minutes total in Darwin and it was the most intense, humid, extreme heat I have ever felt—worse than Brisbane when we first arrived). When we got settled in we took a look at the tour brochures and had a conversation about what we wanted to do. The 2 national parks in the Darwin area are Litchfield and Kakadu. We decided we’d like to visit one of them and Litchfield seemed like the more logical option. Kakadu is about a 4 hour drive outside of Darwin, while Litchfield is only about 1.5 hours. Also, all of the Kakadu tours were for multiple days while there were day trips to Litchfield. We went through the Litchfield offers, decided on the best one, and then called and booked it. By about 630pm we were starving (all we had eaten all day were the scones at 10am). We went down to the lobby and I talked to the concierge about food and she gave me a map and a restaurant guide. Brian and I headed out to Mitchell Street, which was one street over. Basically Darwin consisted of 2 main streets: Mitchell Street and the Esplanade, which is where the hotel was located. The first place we tried to go in the restaurant guide was closed so we were forced to come up with a plan B. This is where things started to get, how should I say, indecisive. I really wanted to get something with a local flavor, some type of an Australian cuisine. Brian, however, was so hungry he was looking for anything. After we tried the first place that was closed Brian was looking to eat anywhere we saw. I suggested a place called Wisdom, which was in the book and we had walked by several times. It was partially outside and was basically a bar. It didn’t look like it would be a great restaurant but it was in the book and specialized in “Australian cuisine.” I thought it would be the homerun for the situation we were in, especially on empty stomachs. Well, Brian thought it looked too much like a bar, so for the next 45 minutes we sweated up and down Mitchell Street trying to decide on a place. After I shot down a couple Italian places (who wants Italian in Darwin, Australia?) Brian and I walked back past Wisdom and decided to give it a shot. It proved to be a great decision. For an appetizer we ordered the Territory Platter, which was a sample of kangaroo, crocodile, and emu. For my main course I ordered a burger but it wasn’t the typical burger you’d find in the states. It was served on a ciabatta roll and had a funky type of chunky tomato based sauce and some type of a white sauce. We grabbed a beer and sat down to wait for our food. When the Territory Platter came the first thing I did was bust out laughing. For the price of it, we assumed the portions of each type of meat would be pretty good. We were wrong. There was one skewer of each type, just enough for us to split each and have a couple bites. I didn’t think the emu was very good. It really didn’t taste like anything. The crocodile was pretty good but I’m not sure if I could eat an entire meal of it. It did sort of taste like chicken but not really. The best of the 3 was the kangaroo. The kangaroo was actually really good. It didn’t taste like anything I’ve ever had before, nor can I rightfully compare it to anything, but it was good. The burger I had for my main course was delicious. After our meals and a few more beers Brian and I decided to see if anything was happening in any of the other bars on Mitchell Street. The answer was a resounding no. We had one drink in another place where we were two of five people and made our way back to the hotel. Around 9:30pm we hunkered in and turned on the television. We had all of about 5 channels at our disposal, so our choices were limited. Luckily we struck gold. Nickelodeon has this thing they call Nicktoons at Night. Nicktoons at Night consists of all of the cartoons we grew up with on Nickelodeon as kids. By the time the trip was over we had watched Hey Arnold!, AHHH Real Monsters, Angry Beavers, and Spongebob. After watching for about an hour and a half I passed out.

Thursday April 16th- The plan for Thursday was to wake up and be on the move by about 9:30am and explore Darwin. We knew there wouldn’t be much to see but there is still a pretty rich history with the pearling industry and of course the bombing of Darwin from WWII. Unfortunately our bodies decided they didn’t want to play the game. I distinctly remember setting my alarm for 9am, but because we had been on the move for so many days and were so worn down, we didn’t wake up until just after 11am. This also threw us off as far as planning the day because we wanted to hammer everything out in the morning. By the time we showered it was a little after noon, so we made our way out into the sweltering heat to find some lunch. We decided on Subway because it was easy and cheap, and then we decided to do a little shopping. We knew our next 2 days were completely booked up so we figured the best time to shop would be early on Thursday and then we could spend the rest of the day checking things out in Darwin. There wasn’t much as far as shops go, although we did find a couple. I don’t want to get into the details of how the shopping went because not all of the items were purchased for me, although I will say I got a good head start on a couple people and the shopping for the Old Man is done. Brian actually finished shopping for everyone in his family. We finished shopping around 3 but unfortunately just as we finished a very big thunderstorm rolled through the area. We ended up soaked walking back. It rained for about an hour and a half so Brian and I stayed in the hotel room watching television until it let up. Around 4 we made our way back out and did see a couple war memorials and some history type items, but not as extensively as I would have liked. I’m not bent out of shape about it at all because of how tired we were and the rain definitely did not help us. We got back to the hotel after our hour of walking around and had to decide on a place for dinner. We had agreed previously that we wanted to have 1 really good quality seafood dinner somewhere. We went to the trusty restaurant guidebook and checked out the seafood section. The book had listed the top 5 seafood places in Darwin so we had it narrowed down for us. I took the book down to the concierge and asked her what she suggested. Her first suggestion was a place called La Beach at Cullen Bay, along with 1 other place in Cullen Bay (the name escapes me). We had her order us a taxi and waited to be picked up. We had the driver drop us off at La Beach and then went to look at the other place to size it up. The other place was closed so it made our decision simple. We went back to La Beach and had the hostess seat us. We lucked out on where we were sitting because it was in the #1 location in the restaurant. Half of the seating was outside under cover and half was inside. One of the things Cullen Bay is known for apparently are the sunsets and we found out why. We were placed at a table right at the edge of the patio so our view was completely unobstructed of the bay. We were lucky because those seats are reserved way in advance, and it just happened that the night we were there was slow, especially for 2 seaters. The other tables along the edge were reserved except for ours. Brian and I ended up what we like to call a very “bromantic” evening. This place would have been phenomenal to take a date or a significant other, but as Carrie and I often experience, there is apparently a shortage of dates because we never have any; therefore, Brian had to do. Although I will say I would not have wanted to pay for 2 people at this place. Instead of going with a typical beer, Brian and I decided to try something different. We went the fruity drink route. Brian had something called a Grasshopper, which was a Baileys based mint type of drink, and I went with something called the La Beach special. It was vodka, peach liquor, strawberry liquor, and rum. It was a frozen drink and it was really good. I could barely taste the alcohol in it. For an appetizer Brian and I both ordered the prawn and barramundi soup. After a lengthy look at the menu, Brian went with bugs (lobster sort of things) and I went with the catch of the day, which was the Gold Band Snapper. Now, when the guy explained how it was cooked, he told me it was a whole fish and yadda yadda yadda. I assumed when he said whole fish that he meant just the meat from the fish. Oh no, he meant the entire fish. This entire fish was thrown down in front of me on a plate. When the waiter walked away from me I look at Brian and pulled out the “It’s smiling at me” from A Christmas Story. Brian could barely control his laughter because I had exactly 0 idea how to attack this thing. I finally just went for it and much to my delight the scales and skin pulled right off. It took a little work but it was not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I will say that it was absolutely incredible. It rivaled any seafood meal I have ever had. It helped the Gold Band Snapper was a local fish and probably came out of the water that day, but it was tender and juicy. It was cooked perfectly. The fillets were as white as could be. After I attacked the one side of the fish I was presented with my next problem: how do I get to the other side? Brian solved it for me pretty easily because when he lifted up the tail to figure out a way to flip it the back bone pulled right out. I was off to the races again. It was so good I ate the entire thing. There was nothing left to be found. It came with steamed vegetables that were also very good. I tried Brian’s bugs, and I’ll say I was less than impressed. I think I had huge expectations for them from everything I’ve heard but I think lobster is better. The waiter told me before my fish had about 550 grams of flesh, which was about 19 oz. I was full but we had enough time spread out between everything that we had dessert. Both Brian and I had a Bailey’s flavored cheesecake. It was very good. By about 8:30pm we had finally finished our meal, a 3 hour marathon. Brian and I certainly bonded over that dinner. We went back to the hotel to some Nicktoons and I passed out around 10pm. We had a big day of fishing coming the following day.

Friday April 17th- The alarm clock went off at 4:20am to get us up to be picked up by 5:00am. This was an extremely difficult wakeup but I was really excited so it wasn’t too painful. I had packed my backpack the night before with the essentials (sunscreen, water bottle, camera, hat and bug spray). Brian and I got down to the lobby at 5:00am and waited for our ride to show up. The guide was running a little late and showed up at the hotel around 5:30am. When he arrived we hopped in the truck and threw our stuff in the back. The guide’s name was Nathan and he was probably about 26 or 27 years old. We’d be fishing with a father and son from Melbourne named Tim and Nick. Nick was around our age and Tim was in his late 40s or early 50s. I knew immediately when we got in the car it was going to be a good day. Nathan was really funny and Tim was extremely talkative. It certainly wasn’t going to be boring. We had about a 100km drive to Corroboree Billabong, which is where we’d be fishing. Nick and Brian were pretty quiet and tired for most of the ride and I did my best to engage with Nathan and Tim when I could. Most of the conversation on the way consisted of talking about the recent people that had been eaten by crocodiles (something like 4 in the past 2 weeks) and how stupid they were for being eaten. One of the guys was eaten when he tried to swim across a crocodile infested river at 3am to get more beer for him and his friends. Nathan’s theory was that God created dangerous animals to eat stupid people, thus insuring the gene pool was weeded out of anyone who wasn’t smart enough to pass along their genes. Nathan also referred to crocodiles as “snapping handbags,” which I thought was pretty funny. After about an hour in the car, we arrived at a small rest stop where we met up with Al (the owner but he also serves as a guide) to pick up our boat. At this point we realized how lucky we were to have Nathan as our guide instead of Al. Al is a pretty intense person and didn’t seem like he would be the best person to be on a boat with all day. Tim told us about the conversations he had with Al and how rude Al had been to him. At the rest stop Nathan got everything in order and we had a chance to grab some breakfast. I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and a bottle of juice. Surprisingly enough, for a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, the sandwich was pretty good. While we were waiting for Nathan Tim explained to me the NT abbreviation for Northern Territory actually stood for “Not Today, Not Tomorrow.” This came up after Tim mentioned how Nathan had been late in the morning. According to Tim the heat in the NT makes people slow. After we were all loaded up we took another 20 minute drive to the Corroboree Billabong. This was the first time they had tried this particular place to fish because it was a little bit early in the season, but because the rainy season had ended early the normal place to fish at this time of year was inaccessible. The drive to the billabong was on a red dirt road. At this point we realized we were officially in at least a portion of the outback. The ride was bumpy but a lot of fun. There were wallabies EVERYWHERE along the drive. At the sight of the first wallabies the first jokes about the aboriginal people were unleashed by Nathan and Tim. I’ll admit, they were pretty funny, especially Nathan’s impersonation. I think race jokes are funny in general because you have to be able to laugh at yourself, but someone that considers themselves politically correct would not have enjoyed a good portion of the day. Basically every animal or fish we talked about and saw that wasn’t good eating had a follow up of, “Yeah but the black folk love them” or Nathan’s impersonation. On a complete side note, everyone is quick to judge the US and our treatment of certain individuals, and I’ve especially noticed the Aussies like to throw in their 2 cents at times. After being in the Northern Territory, where a majority of the aborigine people resides, no one can say anything to the US about how we treat anyone. Our treatment of the poor isn’t the best, which happens in a capitalist society, but the treatment of the aborigines by the Aussies and Australian government is downright unacceptable. I accept racism exists in the world, even in our own country, but come on. Give me a break. Not one Aussie can ever say anything to me again with credibility about how we treat certain people after being in the Northern Territory. I simply can’t take any conversation steered in that direction seriously. Even Nathan and Tim acknowledged Southern Australia’s neglect of the situation. Anyways, moving on. When we reached the boat launch area we all hopped out of the car to help load up the boat. After about 2 minutes of being outside we were all reaching for our bug spray. I have not ever seen so many mosquitoes (or mossies if you’re Australian) in 1 place in my life. It was brutal. Thank goodness for 20% deet. Once the boat was loaded Brian, Nick, Tim and I climbed into it and Nathan backed it into the water. Right by the boat ramp launch was a big sign warning about salt water crocodiles. Nathan got out of the car and had to climb into the water (just past his knee) to untie the boat. Our job was to watch for crocodiles. After the boat was unhitched and Nathan parked the car and climbed into the boat we went over a few simple ground rules of the boat. The first was never to enter the water for any reason (no brainer). The second was to under no circumstance ever wash off your hands in the water. There was a hose system set up on the boat so you could wash off. This was to prevent crocodiles from taking you. We were told where the life jackets were located although it was also added in that in the event of the boat tipping over the least of our worries should be finding the life jackets. The crocodiles would be our main concern. After the rules were discussed we were on our way. It was about 7:00 or 7:30am. The main way of fishing for barramundi is to troll. We set up the rods and just coasted up and down the billabong hoping to get a bite. This is basically how the rest of the day went. We went through the backwaters of the billabong and trolled our way through the water system. We saw a bunch of different birds and animals along the banks. We saw a huge herd of feral pigs, wallabies, and of course, crocodiles. The crocodiles mostly ducked under any time we got close but we could see them in the distance. My favorite bird we saw was definitely the sea eagle. The sea eagle is a relative of the bald eagle and is just about the same size. It’s absolutely magnificent to watch in the air. We saw one swoop down and take a fish about 20 yards away from us. It was very impressive. We spent a good portion of the day keeping our eyes peeled for baby crocodiles and snakes swimming in the river. Nathan told us that when Al is in a bad mood he likes to capture something, call Al alongside his boat to “look at our engine” and he heaves whatever it is into the boat. The snakes are completely harmless, and the crocodile wouldn’t be big enough to cause any damage, but Nathan said Al freaks out every time it happens. We also spent most of the day sweating, reapplying sunscreen, and pumping ourselves full of water. It was miserably hot when we weren’t moving at a decent pace and I don’t think I’ve ever sweat as much in a day. I also put on sunscreen no less than 6 or 7 times. My hat did a good job of protecting my face and ears, but I was wearing a cut off shirt so I had to make sure my shoulders and arms were taken care of. As far as the fishing itself went, it was pretty slow. That’s probably saying it politely. We were fishing mainly for barramundi and only 2 were caught for the entire day (Brian caught a small one and Tim caught a decent sized one). I wasn’t completely shut out. I caught a catfish and a tarpon. Brian ended up catching the most (6), while Tim caught the biggest (he caught a Saratoga which was pretty big). I think Tim caught about 4 fish and poor Nick ended up getting completely shut out. The lack of fish didn’t come about because we weren’t trying. Al’s group got off the water around 1pm. Nathan had us out until about 5pm. We were having a really good time and Nathan seemed to be enjoying himself as well, so I feel like that played a prominent role of him keeping us out for an extended period. I also kept switching lures, which I referred to as “going to the bullpen” in hopes of switching up my luck. Toward the end of the day when the sun wasn’t as intense I flipped my hat inside out to try and rally to catch a barramundi but unfortunately it didn’t work. At the very end of our day as we were tolling along I spotted a crocodile lying on the bank. We got some good pictures and because Nathan was crazy, he decided to see how close he could get to it. He pulled the boat up to the bank and hopped out and started to creep towards it. I don’t think he ever had any intention of getting too close, but when the crocodile spotted him it turned around and made a beeline for the water. We realized that this particular crocodile was missing half of its bottom jaw. It was probably about a10-12 footer. Someone had bested him in a fight that was for sure. Once Nathan hopped back in the boat we prepared to go home. After about 15 minutes of doing things on the boat we made our way back. After the boat was all hitched up we started off for home. We got back to the hotel around 730pm and said our goodbyes to Nathan, Tim and Nick. It had been a great day. Brian and I jumped in the pool first thing and floated around for about 20 minutes relishing in the cool water. We decided we’d order pizza for dinner. We got out of the pool and I got the number for Dominos from the concierge. I ordered the pizza around 815 and they told me it would take about 45 minutes to 1 hour to arrive. So we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Finally after about an hour and half I called them to see what happened. We were STARVING. The guy tried to look up the order and apparently the girl never processed it. He profusely apologized and had the food at our door in 20 minutes. We also were given it at half price. The problem was it was already 1030pm but it happens. We ate and immediately went to bed around 11pm. We were to have an early morning the next to do the Litchfield National Park tour.

Saturday April 18th- On Friday night before going to bed Brian and I had a conversation about what time we were being picked up in the morning. Brian thought we were going to be picked up at 6am and I thought it was 7am. Brian was adamant about it being 6am. Our alarm clock went off at 530am and the discussion began again about what time we were getting picked up. After a few times going back and forth, we decided to call the telephone number on the brochure. I assumed it would take me to some automated system or at least an answering machine that might give up some information. I was wrong. Apparently people in Australia use their home telephone numbers for their businesses as well, and a very groggy woman answered the phone. Oops. I was right about the pick up being 7am, but I felt bad for waking someone up. I just had no idea. We went back to sleep until about 645am and then got up and went down to the lobby. The van showed up around 715am and we hopped on board and got situated. Our tour had 12 people on it. The first stop we were taking was at the Wallaroo Tour headquarters so we could pay and meet Snappy the crocodile, and then we’d make our way to Litchfield. It was only about a 20 minute drive to the headquarters and we paid and then walked over to the small crocodile enclosure. Snappy was about 3.5-4 feet long. Let’s put it this way, Snappy was not very happy about the prospect of being pulled out of his enclosure. As soon as the guide got close Snappy took off, opened his mouth, and hissed like crazy. Needless to say the guide won and used gum bands to keep his mouth closed. After the guide talked for a couple minutes he asked everyone if we wanted to hold him. Some of the people did, but the guide warned us to be quick with pictures because once Snappy got upset being handled it was the end. No one really leaped forward to go first so I volunteered. I don’t really understand the hesitation by some people because it’s not like anything could really happen. I suppose you could be whipped by the tail but the guide wasn’t going to let go of it. Snappy was pretty heavy, but I‘ll say I understand now why their belly skin makes such good wallets and purses. The belly skin was extremely soft, surprisingly soft really. Brian ended up being the last one to hold him and 1 or 2 people missed out because Snappy was irritated. Once we all washed our hands we got into the van and left for Litchfield. The drive was about an hour and a half and we arrived at Litchfield around 9am. The guide told us it would take a solid week to see all of Litchfield but they had a few of the highlights picked out. The first stop was a place called Florence Falls. The falls emptied into a place where we could swim (crocodiles can’t get to this spot) and hang out for about 45 minutes. Brian and I put on our bathing suits and trekked down to the swimming hole. After we took a few pictures we got into the water and swam around for a bit. After a little bit of swimming around I came back into the shallow area to relax and sit in the water for awhile. I had intended to swim next to the fall because there was a way to get on the other side of it which would have been cool, but I was struck down with a cramp in my leg which ended that thought pretty quickly. I went to relax and as I was sitting there minding my own business I was suddenly viciously attacked. When we got in the water there were these black fish, some of which were about a foot in length. As I was sitting there I felt something bite the little toe on my left foot. It didn’t hurt as much as it startled me, but it definitely pinched a little. I thought it may have been a crab or something at first, until I moved and was bitten again in the same spot. I had a blister on that toe from the flippers at Heron Island and the fish were being attracted to it for some reason. A girl on the tour kept having her bruises bitten. They must have been attracted to the red and purple or something. After 5 minutes I had had enough so I got out of the water. By this time it was just about time to go so Brian and I walked back up to the van and got ready to make the jump to the next spot. Our second stop was about a 5-10 minute drive. The next stop was called Buley Rockhole. Buley Rockhole was an area where the water cascaded down creating separate water holes along the way. Some were as shallow as a foot and others were as deep as 15 feet. If you found a good spot in them it was almost like sitting in a hot tub and being hit by the water jets. It was about 10am it was starting to get really really hot. Brian and I put on our first large dose of sunscreen. Believe me, they kept coming throughout the day and we had to pound just as much water as we did the day before. After the sunscreen application we made our way down towards the bottom portion of the rockhole to find a spot to sit in the water. The current was pretty strong, and if you weren’t careful it was possible to be carried down into another water hole. Because we were towards the bottom there was only 1 other waterhole and then a relatively significant drop to the next (about 10 feet or so). I found a spot I liked and sat there and enjoyed the current. I had to clamp down pretty tightly but it wasn’t unmanageable. Brian, on the other hand, decided to be a wild man and was posted up in between the waterhole I was in and the next one. I kept telling him he was going to eventually lose grip and tumble down into the next one but he didn’t believe me. Sure enough, after about 5 minutes, he lost his grip and looked as if he was going down a waterslide sitting up. He dropped down about 4 or 5 feet and landed in the next waterhole. Thankfully he didn’t tumble down the big drop as well. I will say it was absolutely hilarious to watch. His face went from normal to sheer panic in about .2 seconds. I’m pretty sure he thought his time card on life had just run out. Once I saw he was ok I couldn’t stop laughing. It was priceless. After that he didn’t mess around anymore and sat next to me. For the next 15 or 20 minutes I talked to a woman who was there with her 9 year old son (I had to grab him several times before he went flying the same way Brian did. He kept screwing around). Once time was up we went and changed back into our non swim gear and had about a 20 minute drive to the next stop. The next stop was the largest waterfall in Litchfield called Wangi Falls. Unfortunately we weren’t able to swim yet. There was something going on with currents because the rainy season had just ended, and crocodiles can make their way into this area during the rainy season. Once the water subsides park rangers use underwater scanning equipment to look for crocodiles before they open it up to swimmers. We took some pictures and hung out for awhile until lunch. Lunch consisted of sandwiches and brownies for dessert. I was really hungry by this point so it tasted really good. After lunch we had about a 30 minute drive to the famous termite hills of Litchfield. I wasn’t too excited about the termites, but once I saw how massive these hills were it made it much more interesting. The largest one was at least 80 years old, and the second biggest was at least 60 years old. Our guide talked about the termites and gave us a rundown of how the colonies work. They’re very impressive little creatures. We were also shown a different patch of hills with termites that only live in Australia. It was insanely hot and thankfully the termite portion of the tour lasted for only about 30 minutes. It was just too hot to be out in the sun for any longer than that. The next stop was the one which I was the most excited for: the crocodile cruise on the Adelaide River. Before we booked the Litchfield tour, Brian and I had considered doing a 1 hour crocodile cruise on the Adelaide with a different company. The boat for this other cruise was really big and could hold on the upwards of 40 people. When we got to the dock where our boat was stationed I just about dropped my teeth. We weren’t going to be on some big boat, we were going to be sitting about 1.5 feet off the water with a small metal gate coming the rest of the way up. To get on the boat we had to pair up 2 by 2 and take turns going down as a pair. I volunteered Brian and me to go first. We got into the boat and Brian was sitting by the rail and was freaking out about how close he was to the water. I personally wanted to be on the rail and get as close as I could so we switched. Once the boat loaded up we went over the rules of the boat. The most important was under no circumstance could you stand up on the side of the boat where the crocodile was located. Because the crocodiles jump out of the water to get the meat the guide had on a stick, anyone standing up on the side of the boat with the crocodile became a big target. People on the other side of the boat were able to stand up to take better pictures if they wanted. Also, never could you hang anything over the side of the boat that you weren’t willing to lose. After we went over the ground rules the guide started up the boat and we were off. Within about a minute we saw a crocodile making its way towards us from behind the boat. This crocodile’s name was George, and he lived in the area by where the boat is docked. George was 18 feet long, practically as big as the boat. The way these things move through the water is impressive. The guide prepared the bait and enticing George to take it. As the guide lifted up the meat the crocodile came up out of the water (generating its power from the tail) to snag the beef. When George was on the other side I stood up to try and get a couple better pictures. The guide swung the boat around and had George on my side of the boat. I literally could have touched him he was so close. Simply put these things are dinosaurs. It was like being in Jurassic Park. The producers of that movie definitely studied crocodiles to get some of the movements. We repeated this process with a bunch of different crocodiles. When the crocs hear the sound of the engine they immediately associate it with food and make their way over. None of them were as big as George, most of them averaged 10-14 feet in length. We searched for a crocodile named Hannibal, who was the biggest male in the area. He was 24 feet long and was missing 3 of his 4 legs because he had lost them in battles with other crocodiles. Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood to play, but the other ones sufficed. The most intense part was when the crocodiles would systematically look at every single person on its side of the boat. It was almost as if they were sizing us up to see if we’d be a better meal. Whenever they started at you it was if their glare cut right through you. It’s a very difficult thing to describe. The other part that was really wild was when they’d raise themselves out of the water to get the meat and miss. The noise the jaws made when they snapped it together was unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The best comparison I have is it almost made a thud sound, sort of like a mortar shell leaving a tube, along with a loud crack at the end. After George the guide reminded the people in the boat that there was more than 1 crocodile in the river at a time, and to pay attention even if the crocodile he was feeding was on the other side. I wasn’t in the mood to be lunch and no one else was either. Needless to say that ended anyone standing up. We were on the water for about 1 hour and I was captivated the entire time. I think the crocodile cruise was my favorite part of the trip, and definitely ranked right up there with swimming with sharks for the mid semester break as a whole. We exited the boat the same way we got on and hopped back in the van. It was time for the last part of the day: champagne, prawns, and a sunset at East Point Reserve. We had almost a 2 hour drive back to East Point Reserve, which was just outside of Darwin. When we arrived we got an excellent spot along a cliff and indulged in the prawns (delicious-screw shrimp, I’m never eating a shrimp again..Prawns is where it’s at) and champagne and waited for the sun to go down. It was nice, although slightly cloudy. I can say with confidence at this point though I was officially sunsetted out. I had seen quite a few of them throughout my trips. Once sunset was complete we loaded back up into the van and were dropped off at our hotel. Brian and I hopped into the pool for about 15 minutes and then went and showered. I personally would have been happy eating dinner at the hotel and then relaxing and watching television for the duration of the evening, but Brian had the itch to go to the casino. After the pool we showered and left for the casino around 730pm. When we got there we scoped out the joint and picked one of the restaurants inside to eat dinner. We chose a place with a seafood buffet, and while I’d generally be leery of such a thing, the food was excellent. They had just about anything and everything you could imagine and it was all good. Though for the price it better have been good. I had crab claws, roast beef, calamari, and lasagna. After dinner we went and found a blackjack table. It was really crowded and Brian really wanted to play, so I let him have the seat and I just watched. After awhile I called home while Brian was playing and waited for him to be done. I was bored but I was glad we went for him because it was something he really wanted to do. Because it was so crowded I had no real desire to play. When he finished up we went outside and got a taxi to take us back to the hotel. It was about 1030pm. The really funny thing was the taxi driver had an outside thermometer in his car and it was still 32 degrees Celsius (roughly 90 Fahrenheit…at 1030pm!). I’ve never experienced heat like I did in Darwin, that’s for sure. We got back to the hotel and went to sleep around 1130am. Our flight out the next day was at 6am.

Sunday April 19th- Our alarm went off at 420am to wake us up to head to the airport. I had the concierge call us a cab and we arrived at the airport at about 510am. We had some time to kill so we walked around the bookstore and the shop inside the terminal (the Darwin airport was tiny). The funny thing was that as I was buying gum the girl at the counter started talking to me. Our conversation began with her saying, “Wow you look really tired,” aka Wow you look like crap! I think that was the first time a stranger had ever said that to me. We got to talking for a minute and she told me she had studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philly and she had been to Pittsburgh. She was so excited she met someone from Pittsburgh I’m pretty sure it made her entire day. She was right though, I was completely exhausted. The flight back to Brisbane was uneventful and we landed around 10am. I arrived back at King’s around 11am. The Darwin trip and Mid Semester Break was officially over. Without a question it was the most amazing 10 days of my life. The things I got to see, experience and learn were a once in a lifetime experience. I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

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Photos

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View from our hotel balcony of Darwin Harbor

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View from the hotel balcony

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View from the hotel balcony

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View from hotel balcony

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Esplanade Street. This is the street the hotel was on.

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Area further down Esplanade Street

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Park across from the hotel

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War memorial in the park across from the hotel

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War memorial in the park across from the hotel

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Me next to the memorial

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View of the harbor from the park

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View of the harbor from the park

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View of the harbor from the park

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Area around Darwin

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Government House that was partially damaged during the bombing of Darwin in WWII

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Bombing of Darwin memorial

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Bombing of Darwin memorial

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Bombing of Darwin memorial

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View of the harbor by the government house

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Streets of Darwin

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This is the city of Darwin in a nutshell. Not a whole lot going on.

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View from our seats at La Beach restaurant

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Here are our fruity drinks. On the left is Brian's grasshopper and on the right is my La Beach Sunset Special.

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This is really dark, but I'm holding my drink.

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View of the sunset from our seats at La Beach

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Sunset view

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Sunset view with a boat passing

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Sunset view

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"It's smiling at me"

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Sunset view

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Sunset view

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Me hammering down my fish. I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

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A box jellyfish warning sign outside of La Beach restaurant by the walk close to the water

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Box jellyfish warning sign

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La Beach sign

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Area by the boat ramp at Corroboree

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Area by the boat ramp at Corroboree

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Area by boat ramp

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Finally hitting the water at Corroboree Billabong

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Corroboree Billabong

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Sunrise at Corroboree Billabong

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Corroboree Billabong