Darwin and the great national park Kakadu

---

We arrived in Darwin on Monday 26th March. Darwin is the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) with only a population of around 80,000. Only 1% of Australians live in the NT, but NT covers 20% of Australia’s land mass. Darwin is still somewhat of a frontier town to many Australians, and is nearer to Jakarta, than it is to its own nation’s capital, Canberra. Darwin is a very modern town due to the bombing it took in WWII and the devastating impact of cyclone Tracy on Christmas eve in 1974. Darwin was the only city in Australia to suffer prolonged attacks during the war, 64 raids over the town, totaling in the loss of 243 lives. Cyclone Tracy's wind speeds peaked at 280km, and of Darwin’s 11,200 houses, only 400 survived.

We stayed in one of the local campsites for the first few days, until Ann had got a job. I had about 2 weeks until Steve was arriving, so I also decided to look for some work. On the Wednesday we went into a local job agency, and I got work starting that afternoon as a landscaper with a chap called Paddy. Me and many others backpackers had to lay turfs of grass on a football pitch to get it ready for the Arufara games, which is sort of like a small Olympics for Darwin. I ended up working for him for 5 days. There was a good bunch of people that I was working with and although the job was very repetitive, its was good fun. Ann got a job working in the local Toyota dealership for two days, and then she got a job as a barmaid in the local backpacker’s pub, called the Vic. She also had a few shifts in some local restaurants to get money saved up for Asia. Because we now had jobs sorted we decided to book into a local backpackers called Melalucas. It was really nice with a pool and outside bar, and great views over the main street.

On Sunday 29th I picked up Ann’s friend Lisa from Darwin airport. She traveled with Ann on the east coast last year when they met on the plane over from Germany. Ann gave me a sentence to say to Lisa in German when I first met her. I don't know if I got the words completely but she laughed anyway! I picked up Steve on the 4th April, and he had two passengers with him from Brisbane. Sally who is a girl we know from home, and her friend Laura who she met on the east coast. I picked the 3 of them up in the van, and they all seemed very impressed with the shaggin wagon! We all went back to Melalucas where I had booked them all in. That night we just stayed up and chatted about Australia and things from back home. For the first few days all you could here from Steve was that it was too hot. I kept telling him to shut up and have a solaro! Also the first few days he was getting up at 7 o'clock every morning. I told him he should try and stay in bed longer to sleep off the jet lag. All he kept saying was, "I’m a 7 o'clock man". The next few days after that, Steve pretty much slept 24/7, and were getting up at 12 because of the jetlag. When he got up late, we all kept saying to him, "I’m a 7 o'clock man!!" We stayed in Darwin until the 17th April and didn’t really do much except eat, sunbathe and drink! Ann and Lisa got jobs and that took up most of there time. Me, Ann, Steve, and Lisa then all decided to go to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock), and take in Kakadu National Park on the way. Ann and Lisa both had flights out of Alice Springs at the end of April to Perth and Brisbane respectively, and from there, caught connecting flights to Singapore.

On the way to Kakadu, we went to a crocodile jumping tour. We arrived for the 1 o'clock tour and we were the only ones there. So the tour guides led us onto the small boat, which only holds about 10 people. This made us all feel very nervous, as the boat seemed more fragile than a blow up dingy! Anyway off we went down the Adelaide River in search of the crocs. We saw one straight away, but we was told it was only a small one, made our bums twitch though as it jumped up out the water for a piece of meat! We then went onward down the river and for about 15mins didn’t see one croc, and were starting to think that this was a bit of a rip off. Then the tour guide spotted a croc even Steve Irwin would have been scared of! Its was about 4 - 4.5 metres long, with a mouth bigger than the channel tunnel. The guide stared dangling the meat outside the boat to get him over to us. We were all pretty impressed with the size, but as it rose out of the water to grab the meat, the size really shocked us all. The power of the croc was amazing, and when it swam into the side of the boat it nearly knocked us off our feet! Also the guide spotted an eagle in one of the trees on the water edge. She dangled more meat out, and the bird swooped down and took the meat in mid flight. After some dinner we traveled into Kakadu National Park and went to a wetlands area where many species of birds live. We then stayed at a campsite on Mary River for the night, and got eaten by mosquitoes!

Kakadu National Park is a natural marvel, with amazing wildlife, great scenery, and significant Aboriginal rock art sites. Much of the park is Aboriginal owned, but leased back to the government to be used as a national park. Kakadu has thousands of animals and birds, some which are only native to the park. During the wet season much of Kakadu is unreachable due to the rain, and this was still the case with some of the waterfalls that we wanted to see. We went to the rock art sites at Ubirr, and Nourlangie and some of the paintings were thought to be around 6000 years old. Ubirr also had amazing views over Kakadu; the photos don't justify the sights we saw. That night we stayed at a bush camp and cooked dinner over a campfire, this is Australia!!

We then traveled out of Kakadu, and started the 1500km drive to Alice Springs. We went to Katherine Gorge. We went on a walk to the top of the gorge with amazing views up and down the river. That night in the local campsite, we had wild kangaroos coming right up to us as we were cooking dinner. Then further south we stopped in a small outback town called Daly Waters. Its pub is famous as it’s the oldest pub in the territory and because of its unusual array of mementos left by passing travelers, from bras and knickers, to banknotes, coins, and hundreds of passport photos, or expired ID cards. Me and Steve put ourselves up at the bar I used my old Gas Corgi card, and Steve used an old site pass card. We'll be in Australia forever!!

Next up Alice and Uluru!!

---