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Leaving Vietnam was a hard thing to do considering there was still much to see but unfortunately time was racing on and it was time to see the land down under. My first port of call was the north most city of Darwin at the highly unsocial time of 4am which caused a big problem at my hostel who refuse to check you in until midday which meant I spent ages on a bloody hard sun lounger for seven hours. This did not bode well for my time in Darwin!
Darwin is currently in what they call the wet season and the humidity of the place was extreme and just walking outside you were sweating like you had done a marathon. Anyone flying direct from Europe to this tropic would be on their knees before they could get to water but luckily my time in Vietnam gave me a good start on this.
The City itself has sweet F.A to do other than drink beer so my time lay in the surrounding National Parks. The first one I went to was Litchfield National Park to the South West of the city and was a baby in comparison to the next place I was to venture into. I went here on a sunny Sunday and the locals were out enjoying the pleasant day of rest.
Our first stop was the 'Spectacular Jumping Crocodiles' where they basicallyhang a piece of buffalo over the side of the boat and get the croc to jump for it. This gave us the best way to see this ultimate killing machine and display its awesome power. I now have great respect and understanding for these creatures and their amazing abilities. You stray into their back yard, you ain't leaving!
Next we went to see an amazing city of termite mounds, some reaching nearly 4m tall! Geez their hard things too! They are built like concrete sky scrapers and would take considerable power to damage em.
At this point my tour was hot and sweaty so we made like the locals and looked for a swim and a beer. First stop was Florence falls and had a swim in the plunge pool to cool off and boy was it nice! We stayed a while for a cruise and sit under the waterfall before we headed to another place we just chilled with the locals in a shallow stream beer in hand. Lovely!
Next day was time to see the mother of National Parks, Kakadu. This park lies about 4hrs east of Darwin and is about the size of Wales but much, much nicer. Much of the park is one huge flood plain for several rivers like the incorrectly named West and East Alligator Rivers. They have no alligators in them!
Because of its flooding and rainfall this time is very green making the scenery spectacular! There are a few rock formations to which some we climbed to get into perspective the true size and beauty of this place. Rain brings out the wildlife and we saw various types of wallabies and other creatures like the frill neck lizard.
Wednesday saw me making headway to Adelaide for Christmas and now bored of flying, I jumped on one of the world great rail journeys, The Ghan. This slides its way through the big, red, unforgiving heart of Australia. The scenery again was spectacular and with our half way stop at Alice Springs, I met my new mate Martin Clunes. He is a top bloke and we had a quick chat in between his filming of some documentary. Friday I arrived in Adelaide ready for Christmas with my family
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