I would just like to point out that the photo above is not my picture but it belongs to the website - I have no intention of ever getting that close to a thorny devil!

We arrived in Darwin last night and finally have mattresses again. Oh yes. Yesterday saw the exciting event of the Ceremonial Chucking of the Roll Mat which was a very happy occasion for all. I am writing from inside Parliament House, n the Northern Territory Library where the air conditioning is lovely :)

We spent our last day in Broome on the beach, where a scout troup (not in uniform!) were bulding rafts from tyres and wood and sailing them in the sea. It was fun to watch - the scout leader worked so hard! We then spent the night on the Greyhound to Kununurra.

Kununurra passed in a hot, sweaty blur. We arrived on Monday morning, and after pitching our tent we walked into the town which was insane - we had to stop about ten times and used up all our water as the weather was so so so hot and we were only walking about a kilometer and a half. So we learnt quickly not to do much between about 10am and 2pm. We found an air-conditioned cafe and just sat there for ages until we cooled off, turned from red back to less-red, and then we visited the Celebrity Tree Park in Lily Lagoon in the afternoon (trees=shade!). The park is full of trees planted by "celebrities" ranging from singers to the 2000 olympic flame carriers and ex-governors, and I hadn't heard of any of them. We went to look for Rolf Harris's tree and out of all of them it was the last tree we came to! Other than that, I found Princess Anne's tree, and the tree planted by the Chief Guide Commissioner in 1985 - who comes under the category "Entertainer and Personality"!!!

Kununurra is so close to the Northern Territory border that the time zone seems a bit off - when it is 10.30am in Kununurra the sun is pretty much overhead, as it should be at midday (which it is in NT). The sun rises at about 4.30am and sets about 5.30pm. Crackers. I read in the Australian Woman's Weekly (teehee!) that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman (mmmm) filmed the new film "Australia" in Kununurra - how they managed that I will never know!

On Tuesday morning Em and I got up at 5.30am to go to the Mirima National Park, which the campsite backs on to. We did the three short walks around and over the gorges, and looked for the 1km walk that was supposed to take us past mini Bungle Bungles. Bungle Bungles are rock formations that we wanted to see in Halls Creek but we had no way of getting to them so we didn't stop at Halls Creek in the end. And we never found the mini ones in Kununurra either - we couldn't find the walk in the first place and then the one we did find just took us back to the other walks we'd already done - somehow I think we were just destined never to see Bungle Bungles of any kind!

This was all before 9.30am, when we made our way back into town and sat in the cafe turning back from red to pink again. We then went back to the Celebrity Tree Park and had lunch in the shade, near the creek where an Aboriginal man was sitting playing his guitar, which was lovely to listen to. We had planned to climb a big rock call Kelly's k*** because sunset is supposed to be beautiful from there but decided not to as it was just far to hot.

So Darwin is such a change after that! It feels a bit odd to be near so many buldings again. And I have seen more restaurants in half a day than I have in all the towns we've been in up the West Coast put together. It's a bit cooler than Kununurra too, partly I think because we keep walking past buildings that are blowing their air-conditioning outside :) I had better go because my hour on the internet is up and someone is waiting!