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Hay everyone!
Stuart Highway from Darwin- Alice Springs
Had a fab time travelling from Darwin -Alice Springs, I'd go as far as to say it was my favourite part of Australia so far! Amazing scenery and rock formations to be seen, my camera was on over- drive! Its pretty warm up here in the day, BUT at night it get sooo chilly!!!
The journey began in Darwin which is a reasonably big city in Northern Oz. From Darwin we travelled down to Litchfield National park where we saw huge cathedral termite mounds. We learnt that the termites chew up loads of grass and then spit or sh1t it out to make the mound. Couldn't believe how huge and how tough they actually were. Also saw some magnetic termite mounds which are alot thinner and point in a north- south direction. This enables them to get maximum sun but not over heat in the hottest part of the day. After being termited out we visited some waterfalls in Barramundi gorge and went for a swim to cool off! The highlight of the day was visiting the Mary River where we went on a riverboat cruise and saw massive amounts of salt and fresh water crocs. This place is home to the highest concentration of saltwater crocs in the southern hemisphere! The freshies are the smaller ones where as the salties can be massive and abit scary looking with massive jaws! Saw lots of salties sun baking on the banks and managed to get very close to one which looked liked he was eyeing up our boat eeekkkk. Saw some white bellied sea eagles, pelicans and jabaru's.
The next 2 days was spent at Kakadu National park, I knew it was going to be a great place to visit but was blown away by the stunning scenery and rock formations. It was abit like visiting a lost world and was so unspoilt. We took a 4WD down to Jim Jim falls which was a very impressive site. The waterfall stood at 150m and was the biggest waterfall I have ever seen. We swam in the plunge pool below it and admired it from the rock pool s around the outside. After this we visited an aboriginal site called Ubirr where we saw aboriginal rock art and were told about how they make all the different colour rock paints and what the symbols they paint mean. We climbed to the top of a huge rock mass for sunset and admired the view we had.
From Kakadu we headed south past the Adelaide River to Katherine Gorge for some more river swimming- mind out for the salties! In the afternoon we went to Mataranka thermal pools which were 34 degrees in temperature.That day it was quite nippy so it was nice to get some warmth from the thermal pools! After this we visited the Daly Waters pub which is in the middle of nowhere....Next door to it was Australias first airport. The pub used to provide a stop off/rest area for the passengers while the plane was refueled.It would then fly onto Sydney or Melbourne.At the pub you could stick anything you like on the wall. The walls were jam packed with peoples old photos, old passports and driving licenses, underwear (yep you guessed it used and unused!!), sports shirts and messages. I decided to leave a pic of myself which is right at the front of the bar-beware!!! We had a BBQ at the pub and enjoyed a pint or 2 afterwards. We camped that night near Tennant Creek. After dinner Dean scared everyone to death by telling us an "apparently true" story about a murderer who we named the Banka Banka man.
The next day we rose at 5 am and visited the devils marbles which are big muma granite rocks.Basically they have been turned into round marble type structures over the years. We took lots of photos of the marbles and walked around the site. After this we drove past Wyella which is the UFO capital of Oz. After yet more driving we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and camped for the night near Alice Springs....
Ayers Rock, Olgas, and Kings Canyon
After spending a day or so in Alice Springs we went to the red centre where we saw Ayers rock at sunset and sunrise. We completed the base walk of 9km. It was freezing cold at sunrise but by about 10am we had all warmed up and peeled off some of the layers!
Kings Canyon was particularly stunning, I really liked this place! We climbed to the top of the canyon and had amazing panoramic views of the sandstone rock formations.
Really enjoyed camping at Ayers rock, we all camped in swags around the camp fire.Again dam chilly at night but if you wrap up warm and get a space by the fire you are as warm as toast!
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