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Published: February 14th 2007
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Welcome to Oz
We had to finish the goon of wine so that Pete could have a pillow. Top End Top Time
Crocs, Roos, Snakes, Galahs and Thousands of Flies - Welcome to Oz
We didn't pick the most popular time to visit Darwin, Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks - heavy thunderstorms and a potential cyclone had forced many of the tracks to be closed even to 4WD. So in our Toyota Corolla we weren't going to stray far from the tarmac.
Landing in Darwin we bought a new tent hired a car and set off for Kakadu National Park. It was only a three-hour drive from Darwin and after leaving Darwin we had to negotiate 2 junctions in order to reach our destination - the roads are very straight, very quiet and if it wasn't for the prospect of spotting a kangaroo, very boring.
We broke up the journey with a trip to the
"Spectacular Croc Jumping". Before we went on the cruise we got the chance to see a water python up close. It was thrown around Ang's neck before she had chance to think about it. Ang also spotted
quite a big lizard
blocking our path to the boat. Pete turned expecting to see a cute gecko but it was actually a 4-foot monitor lizard.
Perhaps Ang's encounter with the snake has made her a bit more hardy with wild creatures?
We were the only people to show up for the cruise and the owners said it was not worth their time to do a full cruise. However they said they would take us out in the smaller boat to see some crocs for free. Armed with a bucket of meat and a 2 Steve Irwin-like aussies we headed out into the river. It didn't take long to spot the first croc, but this small one (5 foot) was not interested in the free meal and too lazy to catch the dangling meat, so we carried on upstream. A minute later Bruce (I'm guessing his name) shouted
this one's a beaut
as a huge croc swam straight towards us. After a bit of teasing the croc snapped the meat from the line. It was scarily quick and we were certain we didn't want to meet any of these guys in the wild. It is not just their speed that made them scary, they also seemed very thick and unpredictable - not to be messed with.
Kakadu National Park
Arriving in Kakadu we pitch the
Water Python Necklace
A good, honest smile. tent and had our first Aussie BBQ and goon of wine. Sadly our first night in the tent was interrupted when we found out that the ventilation vents on the sides cool you down by letting in water when it rains. After jumping out and watching the rest of the storm from the car we mopped out the tent and settled back to sleep.
The next day we visited the Nawurlandje lookout and Nourlangie for the Aboriginal rock art. Sadly the Ambangbang Billabong (as seen in Croc Dundee) was out of bounds due to flooding so we were limited to few sights. We also got our first sightings of kangaroos and a black rock wallaby.
The second night there the storms came before we got into the tent so we were able to empty our new paddling pool before going to sleep!
We then made our way down the Kakadu Highway towards Litchfield National Park. On the way we saw more skippies and our first snake, albeit the snake being road kill.
Litchfield National Park
Arriving in Litchfield we found a great campsite which had covered tent pitches, which is exactly what we needed
in our wendy tent. The campsite fed birds everyday, which meant that there were loads on Galahs, Cockatoos, and other colourful bids. Great to watch, but not great when you are trying to sleep. In the words of Alf Stewart
Flamin' Galahs!
Litchfield park also had the same problem as Kakadu in that many of the tracks were closed due to flooding. Though there are less crocs in this area and we were able to cool of in the Florence Falls plunge pool. Beautiful spot underneath two waterfalls with icy water.
Back to Darwin and we returned our wendy house and upgraded to a proper tent, which was able to keep us dry. We found another campsite (after being turned away from one because they reckoned camping at this time of year was too dangerous due to falling branches). We tested out the new tent and it passed with flying colours in the huge thunderstorms that passed during the night.
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