Blogs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 3

We started the morning with a quick pop back into Litchfield National Park to look around a bit and see if there was anything interesting about. The most interesting thing for me was that near one of the big waterfalls (Wangi Falls) there was a trail going through a small patch of monsoon forest where the trees above were absolutely filled with Black Flying Foxes. Hundreds of them, possibly into the thousands, making a huge amount of noise, showering the ground below with droppings (though I didn’t get hit) and just making a spectacular sight. I also finally managed to get a picture of Red-winged Parrots. I’ve been seeing them flying around and they are stunning in flight over the road, but today was my first view of them perched. We then checked out of the ... read more

Day 12 - Darwin / Kakadu Trip Another warm day, another warm night. I can get used to this weather. The humidity is bearable at 74% but the temps have been fantastic. The top temperatures are in the low 30s and the low in the high teens. Today we decided to give Berry Hot Springs another go. The last time we visited was Sunday afternoon and the locals reckon we were silly to go anywhere near the Springs on the weekend due to the sheer number of visitors. Therefore we were there at 8.45am and even then there was a small mini bus full of tourists in the water when we arrived. We got into the water like a herd of water buffalos and soon these elderly were moving on. It was quite pleasant to sit ... read more

There was a hell of a lot of turbulence on the flight from Kota Kinabalu to Singapore. I struggle to remember a flight with that much turbulence although a mid afternoon flight over the ocean very close to the equator is the sort of flight that would encountered turbulence. I don't mind at all though. I don't worry about it, and I find it breaks up the monotony of a smooth flight. (Is that weird?) The captain also announced wind gusting at 20 knots on landing which is fairly high. It's a very short flight from KK to Singapore, only just over two hours, and with a meal that I had pre-ordered the flight passed very quickly. I hardly read any of my book. Just for some déjà vu linking back to my very first post ... read more

Day 8 - Katherine to Darwin. / Kakadu Trip Today we move away from our new favourite home in Katherine to travel to the suburbs of Darwin. We only had 295kms to travel so we did not hurry to wake nor to get to our destination. A couple of things to highlight on this supposedly boring drive. In previous posts I have mentioned road kill. Now today we drove through cattle country where there were no fences along the Stuart Highway. This meant that there always is the possibility of cattle crossing the road. You see them occasionally but not very often. We saw a dead cow today on the side of the road which had been recently hit by a car and it had bloated. It is quite an awful sight to see a cow ... read more

This leisurely meander up the east coast of Australia combines five ports and five sea days and provides a good study of OZ. About 90% of towns and people are located around the coastal edges. The rest is a huge expanse of the Never-Never---as the Aborigines call the outback. This barren wasteland is but a cover for the vast mineral treasure chest which lies beneath its surface. These resources provide the fuel which feeds the economic engine of Australia. Author Bill Bryson noted that Australia is the only island that is a continent and the only continent that is a country, and what a unique country it is. Brisbane is a city filled with towering building cranes heralding a growth boom along the Gold Coast. Spending a day in the quiet Whitsundays near the Great Barrier ... read more