Let the tour begin - Part 1 Litchfield and Kakadu Park

---

We have booked a 14 day tour from Darwin to Adeliade. It is actually three tours together so I'll split this acording to how the tours work, so our first trip was a 3 day / 2 night trip from Darwin to Litchfield and Kakadu Park. The tour is with a company called Adventure Travel, and I must say sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice as I'm not exactly an Adventous Traveller!

The tour started at 6.30 in the morning. Well, this meant we had to meet at the office at 6.30am, but we didn't get on the bus to leave until 8, which was VERY ANNOYING! This didn't put us in a good mood, but we soon got over it (well you had to really!). There were 15 in our group, which included 3 Australians again. The money from Kevin Rudd must be working as I can't believe that we have now met 5 Australians on our travels!

Our first stop was Litchfield park where we went swimming in an amazing waterfall (might have been called Champagne falls). It was so nice to go swimming in the heat. After that we went on a Crocodile Cruise on the Mary River. The cruise was also amazing. We were bascially in a tin can, driving around the river getting really close to massive saltwater crocs and small frashwater ones. The largest one we saw was 5 and a half meters. We were at the front of the boat so was a bit worried but whenever we saw a massive one it generally went under the water as soon as we got close and swam away. The crocs that were on the shore were really well hidden and when we spotted them they generally had their months opened, which looked quite funny! I think they do it to maintain their body temperature. If I remember correctly they need to maintain their temperature at something like 32 degrees. We must have seen about 50 crocs in the wild which was really good.

We also saw loads of birds. My favourite by far is the jabiru - it's HUGE! Never seen one before and even though it was quite far away you could see how massive it was when it stood up. Not sure how it can fly as it looks too big to take off. The one we saw was a really nice aqua colour and had yellow eyes, which means it is a female. Apparently jabirus are the only animal that can kill a croc (they hit them really hard on the top of the crocs head and smash their skulls), making them even better!

It was then off to our permanent campsite to sleep. I've never seen a perm campsite before - they are amazing! It isn't camping at all as you bascially have two single beds in a 'tent', with a front door! And they gerenally have hot water and electricity in the shower room and kitchen. Amazing and better then some of the hostels we have stayed in!

The next day we went to Kakadu. Some people say Kakadont but I really liked it and am not sure why people give it a hard time. We went to Twin falls first, which was amazing! A German tourist got eaten by a crocodile a few years ago so you are no longer allowed to swim there. Instead you get a boat down the river to the falls. It has only been open for about a week once we got there because of wet season and also they had to make sure all the crocodiles had been moved on!!

It is about a 30 minute walk from where the boat drops you to the falls. Of course the group went steaming ahead leaving me and Ian behind. This would have been fine if we hadn't managed to walk off the track somehow and ended up having to climb down a tiny ledge, which then had a massive drop down into the water. As you have already been told not to go too close to the water because of the crocs this is not a place you want to fall!!! Luckily we made it and managed to find the rest of the group hiding in the smallest amount of shade trying to cool down. The thing is that the walk isn't that bad, but because of the heat it seems so much worse. Def worth it though as the view was fantastic!!

After this it was off to Jin Jin falls. That was nice too, but didn't really look like all the photos we had seen as there was only a dribble of water on the waterfall. Oh well, at least we were allowed to swim here as it is too difficult for crocs to get to because there are too many rocks for them. Yippee!!!

To get to these two places we had to drive for about 6 hours in 4WD. It was ok and the senery was amazing. You actually saw trees on fire, slowly burning (which they need to do). Everything looked so dry and it is only the beginning of the dry season so no idea what it will look like in a couple of months time.

Next day it was culture day as we went to Ubirr, which has loads of Aboriginal rock art. It was really interested and also at the end it has the most amazing lookout point. Check out the pictures on Facebook as I can't describe it.

On the way back we stopped at a didgeridoo hut, where I got to cuddle a wallabee. It was really cute and likes to lick your skin as it likes the salt. Lovely!

It was back to Darwin for one night and the next day we had a 5am start to make our way down to Alice Springs.

---