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Published: January 3rd 2009
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The guy we were not supposed to know... On airplanes the air-condition is normally set to pretty cold, and that’s normally fine. But when you get out from an airplane where the air is cool and dry, and step directly out on the ground in Darwin Airport, the heat and especially the humidity makes it feel like you’re stepping in to a sauna.
If you were ever in doubt; yes it is hot in Darwin!
We arrived on the 10th of December, found a hostel, and booked a tour to Kakadu National Park.
Since Darwin is the city in Australia with the highest consumption of BEEER per citizen; we thought that we might as well take part in the fun (we would properly have gone drinking even if nobody else in the city was drinking, but at least we had an excuse this time).
But seriously, they do love beer in Darwin. We met a couple of guys at The Vic, where we also got free food. They were all drunk as skunks, and quite some characters.
One fella especially! He had a patch over his left eye because a car had ran him over while he was sleeping it off on a road… When
we asked him about his name he replied with a thick Scottish accent “You’re not supposed to know me!”
This of course made us ask whether he was from Scotland. The answer was:
“Sometimes”…
It was heaps of fun, and I met a woman who offered me a room in her house once I get to Sydney. Sweet!
Anyway, the next morning we got picked up at our hostel, in a 4WD bus, in the bus we met to awesome Danish girls - a good start on an awesome tour!
Before we got to Kakadu, we made a stop at Adelaide River, where we went on a croc feeding boat cruise. It sounded a bit touristy, but it was actually really cool. They had snakes you could hold, but unfortunately I had already put on sunscreen which apparently isn’t good for snakeskin; so none of that.
On the boat they had a rod with meat, for which the crocs jumped out of the water and big eagles dived from the sky. The can really propel themselves high out of the water!
Just as we had given up on seeing a big croc, a
seven hundred kilogram male came swimming along, one of his legs had been bitten off by a rival - it was huge (Yes Andy; that’s what she said).
After lunch we went to see some aboriginal art sites, it was okay, but we did spend a bit too long there. Darren, our fantastic guide, is an aboriginal and he did tell a lot of interesting things about the paintings and the culture.
As a mean of preventing incest, aboriginal brothers and sisters (of the certain community Darren belongs to at least) are not allowed to talk. That seems so weird for me, but I guess it’s just a matter of customs, traditions and beliefs. A good thing is that you do not talk to your mother in law either - I guess there are always pros and cons…
We finished the day off with yet another nice Australian sunset before we drove to our camp where we ate roo, drank beer and Martin played guitar. It was a perfect ending to a brilliant day!
We woke up early, had breakfast and drove on into the national park. All of a sudden Darren
700 kg Salty
The croc they called Michael Jackson! pulled off the road, made a uie (that’s a U-Turn if you were wondering) drove back a few hundred meters, and made a uie again. Then he got out of the bus, during all this he didn’t say a word. At this point I was pretty much convinced that our dear Bob Marley behind the steering wheel had had some wacka-bacca for brekky.
After standing in front of a tree for some ten seconds, he grabbed a big Frill-necked Lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) and brought it back to the bus. The pour dragon-fella properly didn’t fancy the situation as much as us two legged, warm-blooded creatures, because he was buffing up and doing that whole I-look-like-that-dino-from-Jurassic-Park-trick. That was cool!
After our little rendezvous with the Aussie wildlife, we walked down to a nice little spot where a waterfall plunged into a nice pool, where we swam and chillaxed for a while. The walk was so hot and the flies and mozzies were more than just a pain in the behind - seriously; it was crazy! But it was definitely well worth the walk.
Even though the swimming did cool us down, we were sweating our butts of when
Road Train
They are so buff! we came back to the bus. We now drove to our final destination (on the tour that is - no reason to be morbid), where we had lunch. It was beyond hot, it was freaking scorching!
For that reason most of our little group decided that they would just stay at the bottom of the rainfall and clean the sand out of their vajayjays.
Marketa, a girl from The Czech Republic, a guy from Germany, I believe his name was Stefan (not sure) and myself, were the only ones to go up there. Even though it was hot and steep, it wasn’t that bad, and the reward was a swim and a kick-ass view - for me it was clearly the highlight of the tour, and a really nice way to end the trip.
When we came back to Darwin we had a few drinks with Darren and some of the guys from the tour, good fun and free food. Win-win!
I can’t really be bothered to write a lot of stuff about the last days in Darwin, but in short: We visited some museums and had some beers. Or even more briefly; we had a good
time!
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