Lots to read so Jen and I have written a little bit each- enjoy the read!
Arriving in Darwin at four forty five am was great fun. We landed and were greeted by not only heat, but also an ostensibly very pro-active border guard whose dog found an Apple in some of our luggage… and what fun we had thereafter. Words of advice: ignore advice from a fellow traveler who said "only idiots tick yes in any of the boxes"; fill in the boxes even if you have an apple on you, and don't forget the bags of tea you might have either! We weren't the only ones whose luggage was searched though and who were cleaning the soles of their shoes, half asleep and not quite with it. Sensible really, Oz has a very fragile eco system that they are doing a great job in destroying themselves, why help out?
Taking the "free bus" into Darwin (signs say free but the small print says only if you booked a hostel in advance), we entered a town that I had somehow imagined somewhat different. A combination of a hub for raw materials, military (largest bases in Oz apparently), mining, tours into the outback and their national parks – tourism, it is definitely on my oddest town list. There is one main road that buses and other heavy traffic aren't allowed on which is nice, but it does make way for the tuned low riding cars or high riding pick-ups and men in wife beaters are first elements of Darwin you cannot miss. Opposed to that are their very scantily clad women who seem to really take pride in their appearance… it's pretty funny contrast but it does make you wonder. The third variety of person is the Aborigionals who sadly all seem to be alcoholics and street urchins, throughout the Northern Territories they get treated like children which I am sure doesn't do much to help them out - no booze buying between X and Y o clock, no booze or pornography on their lands – take us back to the Victorian ages why don't you! The last thing about Darwin is that it's very, very hot.
Whilst in Darwin we found ourselves cruising through the weekend till we could pick up our camper; we mooched mainly, it was too hot to move, sweating sitting down in the shade with the Thermometer in the sun at over 50 Celsius and at 40 Celsius in the shade, we did somehow manage to book a bus trip. We missed the first day – oversleeping and wrong time- and took it the next day. Nobody told us it was a Saga tours bus. The tour was very funny, and was half price- the bus driver was I think also the owner of the bus and the tour guide, giving us very useful information about land values, business changes, new plans for building and regulations while driving us around – eventually to Litchfield National park where we looked at some pretty amazing waterfalls, had a swim in a croc free zone and then headed back to town. No shopping in Aboriginal villages though. Next day was Wicked Van pick up day J yeah! MT
We picked up the camper van in Darwin which was hilarious – there's nowhere to hide with this one – bright purple, pink and blue with "Getting married is one mistake every man should make" graffitied on the back. It also came complete with pink fluffy handcuffs hanging from the rear view mirror (makes a change to spotty di I suppose) and the security sticker:
"Attention arsehole: 8th Commandment: Thou shalt not steal. God is watching you, you thieving bastard." Nice touch.
I drove first and condemned myself to ½ hour of teasing for not getting the thing out of gear before turning the on the ignition. The old geezer who was showing us the van simply said "yeah that's a normal thing for a Sheila to do – they normally think there's something wrong with the engine as it keeps lurching forward." I just smiled through gritted teeth while Mark was sniggering in the background. The van is pretty cosy but fine for a couple – a small kitchen unit at the back which you access by opening the boot and then a double bed in the back – you cannot really sit upright in the van as it's just a wee one, but you spend most of the time outside anyhow on the garden furniture so it's fine for sleeping.
First stop: Adelaide River. Mark and I had won vouchers for a free crocodile tour as we both volunteered to hold a big water python in a bar one night. The guy who owned the boat was a real character – aside from just doing the croc trips, he toured the country with his interesting collection of snakes and lizards doing life coaching talks to global corporates. He also worked with a lot of film and TV companies taking them out onto the river to see the crocs, such as the National Geographic. Apparently his boat was used to film "Rogue" a cheesy scary croc movie, which I found very exciting because I am a gimp. He also has porn stars and strippers flying up to the Northern Territory to have professional photos taken with his snakes draped around them – I imagine that his friends hate him. Luckily Mark and I had the boat to ourselves where normally there may be up to 50 people on the trip. Apparently this is the sort of treatment that celebrities get at a 1000$ a pop. The Adelaide River has the largest and most dangerous Saltwater Crocodiles in the world. It is also the only place that they can jump and will do so to get a snake out of a tree or attack a swooping bird. I did not entirely believe this until seeing it - watching 3 metres of crocodile leap out of the water so quickly and ferociously just highlights how deadly they are. The fact that the water is also so calm and peaceful beforehand makes it slightly eerie and makes you jump no matter how prepared you are! Well, as Mark and I were celebrities on the boat, we were allowed to have a go at feeding the crocs. You hold a bamboo cane with a piece of string and a big lump of bloody meat at the end and literally go croc fishing. It's great fun, but also a little scary and you make sure you do not stand too close to the edge. We were very lucky and saw a 6m crocodile which was longer than our boat and who was over 100 years old. Apparently he has cost Craig quite a bit of money in the past as he has eaten through two moving boat propellers. We also pulled the boat up on the swampy banks while Craig poked around with another 4m croc just 1 m from us – he just said not to turn our back on it, which is all very well, however I was not sure what the next step was! Despite having small brains, crocodiles have strong survival and hunting instincts and can remember the habits of their prey. They can stalk something for up to 6 months to ensure that when they attack, it will be 100% successful. For this reason, it's important to do things slightly differently if you are camping somewhere for a period of time with crocs, i.e. collect water at different times of day, etc. I believe it was good for Mark and I to come on this cruise prior to our camping adventure as it really highlighted how dangerous 'risking' a swim in a cool looking billabong or river could be. On the way back we fed the kites pieces of lamb, who swooped in and caught the meat in mid air – apparently they can see their prey from 40km away! (very hard to get a good photo of them though L mt)
We continued to Kakadu National Park which is just beautiful – sub-tropical meets savannah outback style terrain. We had planned to stay at a free campsite/rest area, however many of them were closed due to flooding so we had to end up paying for a campsite called Cooinda, which did have a pool. As it was our first night in the van we decided to treat ourselves to a bottle of red wine (the first since Christmas) and kangaroo steaks which we BBQ'd – delicious. Like Darwin the place was so hot – you only needed to sit outside for a few minutes and you were sweating like crazy and there were ridiculous amounts of bugs ranging from huge cicadas to grasshoppers and mozzies, which made it quite hard to be outside for any period of time – although there were some entertaining frogs who just sat in a line putting out their tongues every time a tasty morsel came floating along. The first night we thought we would die from the heat – with only a small net window and the fact that the temperature was much hotter in the van it was like sleeping in a sweaty sauna and virtually impossible to get any sleep. The next morning it was straight into the pool! There were some kangaroos and a dingo wandering around the campsite in the morning which was quite exciting.
We managed to find the other boys who had picked up their van later than us and went to see some Aboriginal art on one of the rock faces which was very beautiful and later a cultural centre which was well laid out and free. The others seemed to disappear and after looking for them at a few spots we decided to camp at the bottom of Kakadu in a place called Kambolgie. This involved a 13km trip down a 4WD track (yes we do only have a 2WD van which made it all the more fun). Mark and I had a brilliant time bumping around, practicing hand break turns and seeing how fast we could go where the back of the van did not spin round too much – I hope the people from Wicked never read this, haha! The camping spot was literally a clearing in the bush with a fire pit and a little Billabong with a croc sign in front of it. We were the only ones there and knew that we were totally in the middle of nowhere which was exciting. The first thing we did was to make a fire (one of my favourite pastimes) and then we shoved some baked pots in the fire and cooked some kangaroo burgers with the mince we had bought – great stuff, 98% fat free, full of iron, is cheaper than beef and tastes great! The setting was absolutely stunning, and when the stars came out you could really tell that you were in the Outback as they were overwhelmingly numerous and clear. There were hardly any bugs and it was much cooler at night, so we were both a little relieved that we were not going to be cooked every night for 5 weeks!
The next morning we drove another 13km into the wilderness as the track continued and found some walks around a place called Yurmikmik where we pottered along beautiful sub tropical paths to a waterfall. There were lots of spiders around and we saw two snakes, one big one on the track and another on the rock near me which was exciting. Lunch was at Edith Falls which were beautiful but unfortunately we could not swim there due to the crocs still being around. We continued to Katherine and failing to find a free campsite, parked on a track just off the road. Mark and I sat on the roof of the van drinking wine and taking pictures of the cockatoos and sunset, which was cool.
Next morning (we generally wake up around 6.30am in the van as it starts to heat up, although we go to bed at around 9-10pm so it's fine) we climbed up to the view point at St. Katherine's Gorge, which is beautiful and went for a little walk around there. Unfortunately there was no canoeing due to the crocs again! We drove further down to Mataranka where we watched some Barramudi fish being hand fed. They are pretty cool fish, and their eating action is so fast and makes a real chomp noise. We also saw our biggest spider yet – not sure what is what but was tarantula sized and climbing up the wall of the ladies loo, so I made an executive decision to go to the mens. Although by the time Mark had found his camera and taken a photo, it had whizzed over to the mens, so he made the decision to use the Ladies loo, ha! We nearly had an extra passenger in the form of a chicken who decided it would be fun to jump into our van and have a peck around. We continued down the road to Bitter Springs, which is a gorgeous little thermal turquoise pool right in the middle of some swamps – being hotter than outside, it was actually refreshing coming out of them.
The driving continued – it's pretty amazing landscape and the roads are so long and straight. You literally have to fill up with fuel at every station otherwise you will run out which would be seriously bad news. You see a lot of birds of prey and roadkill, i.e. buffalo and kangeroos. There is the occasional big snake and lizard crossing the road, as well as a lucky sighting of an Emu plus baby. The roadkill is the reason we are not allowed to drive at night. Hitting a buffalo or Kangeroo would be hugely dangerous, however this is not a problem for the awesome 'road trains' which look like something out of a cartoon and have sometimes 3 or 4 carriages at the back making them over 50m long. They all have buffers so anything that goes in front of them has no chance! We stopped at an awesome pub in Daly Water which was full of unusual memorabilia. We also passed a lot of WWII airfields/hospitals, etc which were interesting. That night was camping in a layby on the side of the road. I am loving being outdoors so much, eating, cooking, washing, peeing – it's great! JG
Driving through the changing landscapes of Eastern Australia… its utterly beautiful coming out of the usually very arid, but currently very lush central plains into the area around Mt Isa. Not much of interest here; similar to those in sunny UK. The climb into the mountains was pleasant as the hills made for gently twisting roads and beautiful views. Arriving in Mt Isa, incidentally, the largest City in the world, the area covered by its mandate is larger than Switzerland, you get to see MASSIVE industrial activity all linked to it being a fairly rough and tumble mining town. Plenty of mines, plenty of minerals to be extracted, however, unlike the rest of the towns we had driven through, this one has more than one road, a butchers, two "bottleshops" and lots of dust. So we did a little shopping for fresh food and took it easy till we found our free campsite. The accommodation didn't remain free as during a move away from the road, LOTS of icy water was spilt and soaked our mattresses.. and then we were attacked by bugs of seemingly every variety, leading to our snap decision to find a motel. So Mt Isa became our most expensive night but very restful… more to come about the rest of the trip soon! Picassa will be updated soon too! (MT)
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