The Top End.

---

We arrived at Darwin airport at about 2am. Are we tight enough to say "Let's not bother with with finding accomodation till morning and kip on the airport floor". You betcha! At 6am with sore necks we hopped into a taxi and went to Darwin. The temp was a sultry 26C.

The plan for the next few days was to go into the outback known as Kakadu National Park, then get a bus to Alice Springs. We set off to Kakadu at 6am on Sunday morning, about 45 minutes after England beat France in the egg chasing. There were still drunk England fans singing in the streets as people were getting onto the buses.
Kakadu is an area the size of Belgium that is inhabited by about 800 aboriginies. We saw no-one the entire 2 days we were in the national park.

The Northern Terretories, especially the Adelaide River is famous for it's crocs. They stopped hunting crocs in the early 80's and this has allowed the salties to mature to a pretty big size. Every day the boats go out and coax the crocs into jumping for hunks of meat. We saw crocs upto about 4m long, which is pretty big when they are within touching distance.

After a stop to collect firewood it was off to swim in a pristine water hole (all crocs cleared out) before camping out under the stars. Luckily we had a couple of slabs of lager to ease the nigt away while the tour guide showed off his new digeridoo and fire throwing skills. The next day (starting at 6.30am) was more of the same, swimming at JimJim falls driving through the bush and admiring cave art upto 60,000 years old. Pretty impressive.

By the time we got back to Darwin there was just enough time to win a pub quiz before catching the bus down to Katherine, then onto Alice Springs. There is not much to tell about Katherine. It is a town of about 6,000 people and the only town of note between Darwin And Alice. Fantastic.

Now what about this rock?

---