Darwin!

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We made it to DARWIN!! 14 days in a bus... actually thats a bit of a lie. we made it to darwin 3 days ago in the evening but after a rather crazy night out left at 5 the next morning to go to kakadu national park for 3 days.

So, after Alice Springs where we left about 6 in the morning, we drove up to the Devils Marbles, a weird rock formation where it appears to the eye that there are strange balls of stone, varying from 1 to maybe 5m in height, are sitting on the ground and on other rocks. its a very strange sight and quite hard to explain.. but after a scramble around on the rocks where aboriginals wont even go near incase the spirits kidnap them.. a quick stop for a wander around tennent creek, we continued on to the cattle ranch where we were staying that night. we had a talk about how a cattle ranch works and the kind of work the jilleroos and jackaroos do. they get to town, which is tennent creek and really nothing to shout about, about once every few months!!!! craazy isolation in central australia, there nearest city is alice springs, a days drive away which isnt exactly buzzing with life..
after our talk we had a couple of beers and bed. before another early start the next morning, after lots of driving we arrived at daley waters pub. litterally in the middle of nowhere and all their customers are travellers, they document this by asking you to stick a coin of your currency (if there isnt one already) on a post by the bar, people leave t-shirts, flipflops even underwear to leave a mark of where they are from to this bizarre little pub in the middle of nowhere, with extremely expensive beer! we had a 'town' tour from a little kid of 5 years old who lead us around, one stop was to a jail where "the australians put the aboriginals after the war between australia and the aboriginals because they were bad.." at the end of the tour he told us that he did not do this tour for free.. as he was so cute everyone gave him a couple of bucks, our tour guide gave him a tenner! in the end, 5 yr old bailey from daley walked off with $36! his sisters told us he does 2 of these tours everyday!! he must be rolling in it..
that afternoon we went to some hot springs for a swim which was good fun if a little creepy... with all the green and fish and couldnt see the bottom..
that night we stayed near katherine.
the next morning was on to katherine gorge where those who wanted to pay $63 went on a breakfast cruise and the rest of us for a hike a short way along the gorge up to a view point. it was stunning! would be awesome fun to canoe but they hadnt done the croc checks yet so we couldnt 😞 after katherine was edith falls, a freshwater falls not too far from darwin. it was so stunning and so nice to swim in, we were all very sad to leave edith falls for another 4 hours drive to darwin..

after our said crazy night out and 2 hours sleep we were up again for a trip to kakadu which is a stunning national park east of darwin. we spent 3 days traveling through, stopping off to swim in waterfalls and plunge pools, we went on a 'river cruise' along the mary river and saw SO MANY CROCODILES. both salt and freshwater. it was awesome! at the beginning of the dry season (about 2 weeks ago) they survey the area for crocs and remove any animals.. but thats it so if a saltwater croc travels through and finds itself in one of your plunge pools..... we were only taken to ones where no croc has ever moved to but there were massive croc warning signs by each pool. creepy but the pools were so beautiful and refreshing you couldnt really say no.... none of us got eaten however and we all arrived back to darwin last night and after a few drinks and dinner it was bed for us after a rather exhausting 14 days. i dont know exactly how far we travelled but it was thousands of kilometres, crazy!!! but amazing.

so we have 3 weeks left in oz now before we go on to se asia where jay and i are heading to north vietnam at hanoi, travelling about half way down over 2 weeks then meeting izzy and doing the rest of vietnam then jay is heading home 😞 and me and iz are sticking about for another 4 weeks or so for cambodia, laos, thailand.. whatever grabs our fancy really 😊
hope all is good at home xxxxxxxxxxx

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