Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Australasia » Australia » Northern Territory » Darwin
May 4th 2007
Alarm goes off, 3hrs sleep, hangover. Yep I made a friend or 2. One ended up to be complete prick! One of the biggest I have met in years AND he was from Belfast. Enough said. Get me out of this hostel.
The trip is a 9 person trip in the back of a Toyota 4wd something.
The driver is a hippie, the passenger is a chick and sounds German (shes actually swiss). He informs me after mimicking my accent (this is annoying thing about being Irish, to be sure to be sure) and that there is only 6 booked on the trip and we will pick the other 4 lads up in due course. Sausage Fest! This could be a long one.
Co-tripees number 4 gets aboard, he is German. The next is a Frog. We pick up 5 and 6, Aussie lads. Things are kinda looking better.
So here we are, 6 complete strangers, heading out into the Aussie bush, for an all Aussie experience. Fair enough, its not as if we´re like the early settlers going into the unknown. We do
have a guide (in full Steve Erwin Kaki outfit), 4WD, and predesignated camping sights, but it still micro challenge knowing that I´ll be sleeping in a swag, cooking on a fire blah blah!
So the conversations kick off, I chat to the ozzies. Incidentally this is a strange occurrence , Ozzies on a backpacker trip.
The day pans out with the guide doing the usual bullshitting and tall tales about crocs, local indigenous customs, some nice views and some very uninspiring Aboriginal rock art. Granted they´re 1000s of years old but so are the Pyramids and they are quite inspiring! I was never the artistic type anyway.
Highlight of the day, was seeing a load of Aboriginal kids playing in a creek that crosses the road. This is the first time since I have been in Australia, that I´ve seen the natives playing and enjoying they´re natural habitat.
Arrive at camp 1 that evening, its a permanent tent! Not too ozzie bushman mes thinks. It also just outside a resort type complex, with swimming pool, showers n bar. Well fair enough at least I can get some cold beers. The night consists of eating Kangaroo, and
drinking a load of beers with the ozzies. The German, Swiss and Frog, these dudes can sure do a great stickmanbought about 3 between them! Ended up supplying them with grog also. Why does this always happen??? Buy your own booze you tight arses!
It ends up quite a good night, playing Yatzi, watching the French dude, try his luck with the Swiss chick. Meanwhile our hippie guide is going outside for a ciggy and coming back in quite incoherent and blurry eyed waffling complete crap. He didn't offer me any! Its not as if you couldn't smell it wafting round the place. Hope we don't have a crisis in the night, snakes, spiders and the types.
Day 2 - Get up, brekky - Load up the jeep. The day consists of walks, tall tales, swimming in watering holes. Bloody serious scenery and seriously hot!
Kakadu, is a big national park. I suppose what do you expect, it´s Australia! But we do spend a little too much time in the Jeep in my opinion. Ah well on the other hand, I´m doing the highlights in 3 days, where bush men (which I am not) would be spending
Some abodiginal Art
these dudes can sure do a great stickman weeks covering the distances. Be warned this is the tourist experience!
Camp that evening, tents, camp fire and another tour loaded up with 8 Swedish chicks and one male. They started the following day than us. The poor guide has to to escort them up to the ´drop hole´ toliet every time one of them needs to go to the toilet. Meanwhile our guide is escorting himself behind the jeep, having a smoke and returning to regale us with even madded and bizaar facts.
Heard a great one though. Theres a cane toad problem in NT and QLD. They were introduced to wipe out some sort of fly, but soon became a pest! Its basically encouraged to kill these things by all available means, as they´re everywhere, and eat pets and young children!
Theres a short film festival in Oz called ´´Tropfest´´. A couple of locals from Darwin decided to make a short film based on super heros whose sole purpose was to detect, chase and exterminate the Treaded Evil Cane Toads. These dudes dressed in fetching super hero type customs ie tight trunks, capes and masks, each having their own weapon of choice.
There was
Jumping Croc
This is how they make them jump. The secret is revealed. for the sake of Argument, Baseballomat-man, 3-wood man, camping mallet man etc get the picture? So these dudes armed with a camera, dodgy outfits and a variety of sporting implements and household items, filmed themselves in and around Darwin clobbering the bejesus out of toads in the greater name of the community and then putting a x-men type bloody story line round it and entered it into Australia's premier short film festival!
So for the premier showing, they hired a hotel in Darwin, put the word out and even got Coopers beer to sponsor the event. No shit! All was going to plan until the RSPCA, got wind of it, and came down heavy with court orders, lawyers and possible convictions. They had to pull the event and the movie, but as a twist of fate would have it, and an attempt by coopers to save face from being involved in such a debacle.
The RSPCA in conjunction with Coopers beer, offered a 6 pack of Coopers Pale Ale, if you brought 6 Cane toads to the office alive! Apparently, they ran out of beer after about 3 days. Hooray for conservation!.
Anyway, the next day was
Flood Plaines
its nearly dry season. Some serious mushy pea colours! more of the same breathtaking scenery, interspersed with swims and a mother of a drive back to Darwin.
Was a good trip all in, definitely worth doing. Just forget about the croc dundee bushman type living! Its aimed at tourists, budget backpacker or not!
Interestingly enough, went out on the town with my new buddies after. Yep as generally happens, even though you have reservations about the crew on the outset of a trip. You do find a common bond in experiencing the same awesome scenery, cooking, washing cleaning together and generally all smelling the same by the end.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.159s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 56; dbt: 0.1018s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
trubs
non-member comment
crikey - can you spin a yarn, or wot?
nice Journal - luko. Keep it up. Waiting on entries from NZ and where ever you may be right now... stay clean!