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Litchfield NP
Nice swimming hole at LitchfieldIntro
Australia doesn't really need an introduction, I guess. This former Colony for criminals is world famous for: kangaroos, aboriginals, boomerangs, koala's, crocodiles aka 'crocs' (+Dundee, Steve), Sydney Opera house, Neighbours, Kyle Minoque, Nick Cave, "G'day mate", Outback pubs...Let's see how many more clichés and stereotypes I can come up with... Ayer's rock, Great Barrier Reef, Great white sharks, dingoes, 'barbies' (not the toy), The Flying doctors, "No worries", Mel Gibson... pfff I could go on for an hour.
I decided to have a look around myself and try to find out what it is all about.
Darwin
After a 4 hour flight I arrived in Darwin at the really nice time of 4 am. I didn't sleep at all because the movies on the plane were just too good.
The immigration officer didn't seem convinced that I would only be travelling and not working (I don't have a working visa) for 2 months. Maybe it has something to do with my longer hair, but I really had to prove her that I was not some 'broke hippie' and had to explain in details what exactly my job was in Belgium...
She even called me
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The first Wallabie I spotted back when I was already going through customs. Customs was another nice one. Every single bag was opened and checked for goods (especially food) that might threaten the very vulnerable Australian eco system.
Most of Darwin has pretty recently been constructed. The town was flattened 2 times the past century. First it was bombed into oblivion by the Japanese and in the 70's Cyclone Tracy passed on Xmas eve and flattened almost the whole town again.
I like the weather in Darwin. It's hot but the humidity is so much lower (about 60 pct) than in Singapore/Malaysia (close to 90 pct). Which makes that the sweat stains on my shirts have also decreased at a more than proportional rate and I now have the energy to start running again, dodging wallabies as I go. It would be really nice to go to the beach for a swim but unfortunately they have box jelly fish here. These creatures can kill a person if he gets stung by the tentacles that can be over 3 m long. So none can get in the water without protection before June.
Instead I checked out the really nice tropical botanical gardens and
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Croc warning... the 'Northern territory" museum. Two things were especially remarkable about this museum. The first was a 'sound cabin' where you could listen to recordings of cyclone Tracy: storm winds, scraping metal, collapsing houses, etc: terrifying! The other not less terrifying exhibit was 'Sweetheart': a giant crocodile of more than 6.5 m that was caught because it kept attacking boats. It looked more like a dinosaur than a crocodile. I would soon see some more (a bit smaller but alive) of those.
Litchfield and Kakadu NP
One of the highlights in the North of Australia is Kakadu National Park. This National Park (one of the largest in the world) is a world heritage site for both cultural (Aboriginal art) and ecological reasons ( rainforest).
I went for 3 days of camping and exploring the national park Kakadu. During the wet season the whole park gets flooded and there is no way in or out the park. As we were slowly moving into the dry season, the park was just starting to open little by little. We missed out on some of the main attractions (Jim Jim Falls etc) because the roads over there were still totally flooded.
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...and it wasn't a joke Even without those attractions Kakadu is still great for hiking and swimming in the rock pools and billabongs. So we did a lot of hikes to swimming holes that seemed to come straight out of a TV commercial. Incredible settings: pools surrounded by plants and flowers with waterfalls and beautifully coloured water. Trying to swim against the currents to the waterfalls is a great work out by the way and I got to see my first Wallabies (similar to small Kangaroos) on the walks. Another close encounter was with a very poisonous Brown snake.
Another highlight was at the Ubirr Aboriginal art site, that had just opened up for 4WD . The drive over there was pretty spectacular as we had to wade through 1m deep water for a couple of hundred meters. The art at the site ranged from 5000 years to just 10 years old. The art included some Aboriginal law and instructions on hunting and fishing. What I really liked were the X ray paintings. These paintings (a biology course for beginners) depict animals in X ray style, showing the 'inside' of the animals so they could use this knowledge for hunting and preparing food.
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Hannibal in action On the way over to the park we made a stop at Adelaide River for a 'Croc cruise'. The cruise was pretty interesting and we got to see quite a lot of crocs, the biggest being 'old Hannibal' at over 5.5 m.
During the cruise they actually feed some of the crocodiles by hanging some meat about 2 m above the water and the crocodiles easily jump up to catch it. Pretty impressive!
The guide explained how crocodiles actually kill their preys. When they grab their prey (water buffalo, girl filling up water bottle) on the banks. They use a technique called the 'death roll'. They grab the prey and start turning around to make it lose balance after which they drag it under water and keep turning around until the prey stops moving. So they basically drown their victims. After that they start ripping off pieces (limbs) into edible bits.
Really makes you want to go for a swim here huh. Actually it's only the salt water crocs (aka salties) that are really dangerous and our guide let us in on a secret that we had probably been swimming with the smaller fresh water crocs (aka freshies) the last
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"They really do jump. Don't have your head out of the window of the boat" couple of days. Cool!
Darwin to Alice Springs
The centre Of Australia has some really interesting features (Uluru aka Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon, etc) that one does not want to miss when visiting Australia. However they are pretty far away from pretty much everything and everywhere. So most people fly to either Alice Springs or directly to Uluru. I however, with a limited budget but time on my side, decided to do the whole thing overland from Darwin.
We did the 1600 km road trip in 3 days and I loved it. It was great to spend the time talking to other travellers, playing games ('bus Olympics': crazy!), reading and looking out the window. It was great to just stare in the distance and see no sign of civilisation (except for the road) as far as I could see. It really felt like the 'middle of nowhere'. Slowly the vegetation got less and less dense from the tropical woods in the Darwin and Kakadu region till the rocky red dessert of the centre.
At one time we were driving at the wrong side of the road for 11 km (the record is 21 km),
just no one around and apparently it's a busy time now. It felt very peaceful but bit threatening at the same time, I would not like to have my car break down there or get my windscreen destroyed by a passing road train. What's a road train? It's a huge truck with mostly 3 or even more trailers. They are mastodons going 100 km/h and they don't (can't) stop for anything. Overtaking one is a real adventure. You need at least a km for the manoeuvre and the whole bus was shaking from the replacement of air. A lot of accidents actually happen when cars are blown of the road by these road monsters.
Along the way we came across some interesting stopover attractions. Katherine Gorge was a first stop. We wanted to go kayaking there but they have recently caught 3 or 4 salties in the river so no swimming or kayaking allowed. Instead we went for another scenic hike to another swimming hole that was 'croc free'.
We also drove through a village (I believe Eliot) that had a population of only 650 people but that has been divided into three parts North and South camp and
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Getting to know the locals (Harmless Diamond python) Central Town. Because people of North and South camp were always fighting they split up the town. Now people of South camp are only allowed in the centre on even days of the month and people from North on uneven days...insane!
The Daly waters pub was another crazy stop. Really in the middle of nowhere this bar (apparently the oldest bar in Oz) has quite some character. The interior is a mish mash of stuff that was left there by passer by's. Anything from coins and bank notes to ladies underwear. One of the locals, 'the birdman', was a bit special also. Go check him out.
More crazy stuff was to be found at the UFO bar/tank station at the place with the most UFO spotting in Oz. I was told that aboriginals have tales about these flying objects that date back hundreds (thousands?) of years ago.
Our last night we spent at a former cattle station in Tennant Creek. Here I first tried another typical Aussie feature: the swag. It's basically an oversized sleeping bag in which you put your real sleeping bag... and you sleep under the stars. After all the stories about snakes and
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X ray style Kangoroo: aboriginal art spiders it's pretty intimidating to go to sleep like that. Instructions of the owner: "Before getting in check your swag for snakes, spiders, credit cards, money, etc". Apparently people leave whatever in there when they wake up all euphorically after surviving the night. It was really amazing to fall asleep watching the stars (never saw the Milky Way that clear). I actually woke up in the morning with my glasses still on.
One of the last stops before Alice was at Devils Marbles. A warm up for Uluru. The round marbles are Lava stones that were shaped by erosion. For the aboriginals it's the eggs of a giant snake that moved through the region. Choose whichever you like best.
That's it for the first week in Oz. I start to fall behind with these. Just too much too see and do around here and internet is not so cheap. Anyway, I'll try to write some more updates soon.
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Isabelle
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OZ... I wish I were there you...
Hej Jan, I was actually really waiting for your first comments from OZ... as you know it reminds me such great souvenirs! I have really enjoyed the Kakadu as well even though my very favourite place was Central Australia with Uluru, Katja Tjuta... Great that you have tried "swags". Quite funny, isn't it... and the best part is definitively the "wake-up" moment with "your noise in the stars". "no worries, mate" and have a lot of fun in OZ! I do hate you in this moment... :-)))) Ha det jätte bra! Isa