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Hey everyone, stu this time.
Hope you all enoyed Laurens account of singapore and I can I just reinforce the part about the malls. Apart from the zoo, it would all there is to do in singapore is shop. Brilliant city but definitely one for a ladies weekend! However I did love the effieciency of everything, coming from thailand, it was nice to ride a bus not crammed with double the amount of people it should've been! All in all Singapore was an amazing experience and we both loved it.
Now about Darwin, what about Darwin?
For those who kow nothing about Darwin, it is the city of the northern territory. It has an abundence of aboriginal culture and although called a city, it is about the size of Somerton.
We arrived at the glorious hour of 4am, to be in our taxi by 5, and sat by the pool at 6 because they hadn't got a room for us yet. Lauren managed a quick snooze on the sunlounger, meanwhile I read the previous days regional paper. Basically it was all about crocodiles. Because of the wet season flooding, massive crocs were being spotted in all sorts of in land locations as they were being brought in by the high water. There had already been 2 crocodile fatal attacks on humans this year so naturally, from then I was kept on my toes.
Our room this time was not as bad as Singapore. For the same price, it was only 6 beds this time with loads of space, a locker each, and a window!! How lucky are we?!
We soon found out there was pretty much nothing to do in Darwin itself, except walk down to the sea which we could't swim in because of the salt water crocs and jelly fish. By this time it was 34 degrees so pretty annoying, but who wants to get gobbled? At night Darwin was a different story, not better but all the aboriginal people appeared and forget any stereo type of them being fun loving characters like we've all seen on crocodile dundee. From what we could see, they were mostly all alcohlics and incredibly dangerous people you choose to avoid. Not Lauren and I however, on our first night before we knew much about them, we naively walked through a park to be told the next day, that was one of their drinking locations. Dont worry we weren't mugged!
Apart from spending way too much on internet, socialising and wherever else our money seemed to go, Theres only 2 other things worth mentioning about our stay in Darwin.
Firstly was our car day. With a friend we'd made in our dorm, a loveable guy called alex, and his 2 friends, a dutch brother/sister partnership he'd met on his Kakadu National park trip, we all hired a car together. It worked out as such a cheap day because there was 5 of us. About $35, the equivalent of 17quid bought us 400km for the day, petrol, lunch and BBQ style dinner. We drove to plenty of places, like nature parks and lakes that we were assured were safe for swimming and even an outback bar, that wasn't that outback. But still refreshing all the same. The best part; In Australia they love to BBQ ad everywhere you find public BBQ's. So we found one right on the beach. Cooking, jamming on acoustic guitars, eating cheap beef and sausages sounds Idyllic, and it was. It was a really nice evening and like everywhere we've been so far, there was a gorgeous sunset. Pink lit up the whole sky, you'll have to see the pics.
The other Day worth mentioning was our 'Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise' down the Adaleide river. About 20 of us were crammed onto 'the fun boat' and we set off. What they do is hang a feeble looking rod and string, attached to buffalo meat, off the the boat and lure the crocodiles to come to the side and jump out of the water and grab the croc treat! It was only when you see them up close you appreciate how magnificent they are. Living to over 100 years old and growing to about 7m long these things are just created to kill. The biggest we saw was a 5m bad boy and his jaws could've crushed anything, so I would not like to meet a 7m specimen. We were told if anyone was to fall off the boat you had about 15 secs to live. A comforting thought. We have some incredible pictures of these monsters so we'll try and upload them soon.
And basically, that was Darwin, not the most fantastic place we've been but we cannot complain. We still saw things you'd never see at home so it wasnt all wasted but my advice for anyone else going to darwin, would be; Unless you've got enough money and WANT to go trekking in the National parks in 35 degree or more heat, then only go to Darwin for a few days not a week. However it was nice to not do much for once so we appreciated that.
Now we're in perth enjoying a few luxurys in my Uncles house so we'll update you on that soon.
Thank you for reading, sorry I write so much.
Take care,Stux
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