Darwin & The Top End

The giddy winner

View more photos 

We landed in Darwin and were met by more sticky heat.  Stuffed our bags in a motel and headed off into town to get a beer and food.  And after a few months on Asian food the irish stew and meat pie were devoured in no time at all, washed down with a pint of Tooheys.  And a pint is a big drink after 3 months of little beers.  We soon realised that Darwin is small.  Roughly the size of Knaresborough to those of you who know. 

A dawdle down the street brought us to a pub proffering Hermit crab racing.  I couldn't hold Lynds back as she marched up to the bar demanding to know when the racing would commence.  Firstly, a raffle is held to see who gets to race, and both me and Lynds were in from the off.  Then were the heats, and I was in the first.  You're given a plastic dish and directed towards a tank to choose your trusty steed.  Then after choosing wisely it is placed in a upside down bowl in the middle of a square of sand covered wood.  The first crab when released to reach the edge of the wood is into the final.  Needless to say the crab that I chose was more Hermit than crab and decided that life was too good in his shell to bother coming out.  Either that or I had in fact just chosen a shell.  Lynds was in the next round and chose a rather speedy little fellow and quickly found herself in the final.  Giddy does not come close to how excited she was, but I encouraged her to keep her cool among the other racers.  And in the final she came second (a close run affair but when close to the edge Lynds's racer seemed to throw the event by going sideways).  As we speak a stewards enquiry (at Lyndsays request) is under way to establish if any wrong doings had occured!  But coming second gained us $25 worth of booze, and as we were already getting slightly stewed it was enough to tip us over the edge.  And enough also to get us playing bingo which resulted in Lynds winning again and another $25 worth of booze.  At the end of the night we had to give $9 to the barman as we could drink no more.

The van

View more photos 

We recovered the following day with a walk along the seafront where we found a place you could feed fish.  Through a gate and a few dollars lighter we were given some bread and pointed to the beach where thousands of fish had come for their daily feed.  Apparently in the 60's a guy who owned the section of beachfront started throwing in bread for the odd fish.  Word spread through the fishy community and now thousands of fish turn up every day for a free meal.  There were loads of different types, some as long as a metre, and also a box jelly fish had wandered in to see if their were any kiddies legs in the water waiting for a brief painful death.

When it was time to move on we hired a camper van and decided to drive to Kakadoo national park (via Humptydoo, now thats the place to live!) and then down past the Devils Marbles to Alice Springs and onto Uluru (Ayers Rock), then across the outback and down the east coast to Sydney.  Needless to say this didn't look far on the map so off we went.  Four hours later we arrived in Kakadoo with warning signs of croc's everywhere and parked up in a campsite for the night.  Out of the window the odd wallaby hopped about going about his evening chores.  That first night it rained like never before and we now both know what a nights sleep in a snare drum owned by an angry toddler would feel like.  A few days later and we snooped around some aboriginal rock art and saw a whole lot of untouched rainforest.  As we rattled down the road even the odd snake came out to say hello.  We stopped for a night in Yellow-water and took a boat out onto the wetlands.  Now as it was after the wet season part of the route we took was  normally a footpath and road but was now 3m underwater.   The sky was blue and full of birds of all types from Kingfishers to Sea Eagles, and in the water we even saw the odd saltwater crocodile.  The whole place was totally untouched by man and it looked all the better for it.

Aboriginal rock paintings

View more photos 

We got back to the van and started preparations for the journey south.  It was here were I took a shower with a hundered frogs.  They looked like moths as I got in the cubicle, until I got closer and realised they were all frogs about the size of a big toe-nail.  I didn't mind too much as long as they didn't try and hitch a ride on me, but I was glad that we opted for the campervan with shower (too small for me but fine for Lynds), otherwise my travelling partner would, I fear, have become rather stinky.