The Top End

Big scary beast.....s
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When we told some Aussie's that we were going to Darwin in November they cracked up. Territorians call this time of year The Build Up or Suicide Season - it gets hotter and hotter and the humidity levels are ... well, bloody high. We don't know what they're all whinging about, it was okay. Bit on the hot & humid side, but nothing to cry about. Jesus. Whingin' & moanin', moanin' & whingin' ...

Anyway, Darwin's an okay sort of town - some great aboriginal art galleries - but the reason most people come here is to see Kakadu Park, a massive national park and world heritage site that lies between Darwin and Arnheim Land. Kakadu has a quarter of Australia's freshwater fish species, a third of Australia's bird species, 75 different reptiles, the misnamed West, South & East Alligator Rivers (jammed with man-eating salt water crocodiles), wallaroos and was the location for the Australian bits in Crocodile Dundee. Unfortunately it also has over 1,000 different species of fly and a name that sounds like a dodgy Black Lace tune. Regardless, we hired another Trusty Toyota and hit the road.

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Kakadu is well worth the visit. We went during the build up, so the famous waterfalls were dry or not worth visiting, but we did see some enormous salt water crocodiles on the East Alligator River and Yellow Waters Lagoon (Charlie spotted a five meter monster croc on the first river trip - it was the first time that Chesta had felt like prey). The ranger on the East Alligator River was a local aboriginal lady and filled us in about local customs and traditions, which was really interesting. There's other stuff to see - loads of wildlife, some amazing aboriginal rock art, good visitors centres and stuff - but (without whinging) the flies drive you up the bloody wall. And the heat doesn't help. Still, we left having seen a lot and we felt that we'd learnt loads about the local tribes - a highlight of the trip for us as we thought that there's not a massive amount of interesting information about aboriginal people in Australia.

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After Kakadu we went on a jumping crocodile tour, where we floated up the Adelaide and watched salt water crocs jump 2 - 3 meters out of the water for bits of meat. We've all been there. These incredibly scary creatures can sense you in the water 800 meters away, can see 1 km out of the water and can swim at about 35 km/hour. After they've bitten down on you with their 3,000 pounds per square inch jaw power, they'll eat bits off your body for about a week, then stuff you under a root and use you as bait for other crocodiles, fish or bull sharks. Don't swim in the Territory, kids.

Chesta on Aborigine owned Arnheim Land
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We then motored over to Litchfield Park which has waterfalls all year round and no man-eaters. On the way we stopped off a couple of times in the continuing search for Emily's 21st birthday present. We met Waldo, the nationally acclaimed Bush Poet, popped in to see Dinky the world famous singing dingo, ate a camel burger - very nice indeed - and bumped into some aboriginal artists. Eventually we got to the park itself. Again, it's a lovely, beautiful place with some amazing sights. We swam under freshwater waterfalls, got nibbled by fish and generally chilled out as much as we could in 45 degrees wearing a face net. It was nice.

Charlie in Arnheim Land
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After a night in an $85 per person tent (surely there's been some horrible mistake? Can't you see that we'll never pay that?) we did some more swimming & snorkeling & stuff, and headed back to Darwin. We'd arranged to meet Jakob, our Austrian Speed Ball Champion, but unfortunately we got our dates mixed up & we missed him. So we had a few drinks and got ready to leave the country.

Next stop - south east asia.