Toe breaker.

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Kakadu national park was the most accessible of them all so far, with coach parks, proper paved paths and health and safety signs. We stayed in Nourlangie and visited nearby cave paintings. They reckon they’re thousands of years old but can’t tell for sure because they’ve been touched up regularly ever since. Apparently there’s been people living in that area continually for 20 thousand years.

We also had a walk around Anbangbang billabong, a shallow marshy pond which takes its name from a surf clothing brand.

Other highlights included sunset up at Ubir: a large rock plateau overlooking green wetlands, a big fat orange sun plopping down behind the horizon and setting the cliff faces red like fire, geese flying in formation overhead, kangaroos grazing, and a view stretching for miles and miles. The setting was enhanced further by kids on a rock opposite playing contemporary rhythm & blues music through a mobile phone speaker.

On the way back from this I could be seen dragging logs and sticks (covered in spiders and other insects) out of the bushes for firewood and cramming them into the back of the van (where we sleep). Paula watched from the passenger seat shaking her head, a tired look on her face.

In my defence, this turned out to be an excellent fire. That evening we cooked some juicy steaks, caned a bottle of shiraz, poked the embers and watched big bats flying around the van picking off the insects.

We stayed a night at Jabiru - a place I found funny to pronounce in a Yoda voice, and continued to do so every time we passed a sign for it. Hilarious.

Next morning, whilst transforming the van from sleep mode to driving mode - it’s called ‘lockdown’ - you’ll hear more of this later - Paula took the opportunity to drop the tabletop, which is shaped like (and weighs as much as) a tombstone, onto her little toe, thereby notching up travel injury number six.

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