Today we were up bright and early again (not sure what's going on there?!) and after packing our bags we headed down for breakfast. I'm not sure if it was because I was hungry or because it was free, but I managed to polish off a full cooked breakfast and a bowl of cereal. I could have had some fruit too but I ran out of time, gutted.
After breakfast we popped into town to find me a hat for our hike tomorrow. I found a cheap cricket type hat and although it makes me look like a complete tit, I'll make the sacrifice on this one occasion! I won't miss the aboriginies in Darwin. They were quite intimidating on the way home last night and some were just laying out on the pavements this morning. I'm hoping they get a bit friendlier the further south we go but I'm not too hopeful! I also won't miss my fat ankles - another thing that puts me off getting pregnant. Jesus, they were on the verge of cankles last night but they've gone down a bit today. I was showing some people them in the toilet of the pub last night and a girl from England recognised that my flip flops were from New Look - didn't even notice my ankles! So it's not all bad.
We loaded our bags onto the coach and just as we did so, we found out why the call it the wet season. Boy did it rain! Luckily we were pretty much on the coach before it really kicked in, but it's been raining on and off all day. We started the trip with our 'anthem' which is Call It What You Want by Foster The People. We then started our drive along Stuart Highway, which seems to be the only road we'll be travelling down for the next few days.
We stopped off at the Didgeridoo Hut on the way where there was aboriginal artwork, boomerangs and didgeridoos etc. I also touched a Carpet Python (that's not a euphemism!) but I bottled it when it came to holding it surprise surprise! After leaving there we had another few hours drive until we stopped at Maseys Cafe at Pine Creek for lunch. They did awesome mango smoothies. Lunch was a bit of a rush but once back on the coach we watched Crocodile Dundee - bit cliché but it's only because parts of the film were filmed in Kakadu National Park which is our next stop.
In the afternoon we stopped by Jabiru airport to drop off those doing the scenic flight. The rest of us went for a drive round the park and went to Bowali Visitor Centre and Ranger Uranium Mine. Interesting way to pass the time. Then we picked the others up ad headed to Aurora Kakadu Hotel, our home for 2 nights.
Upon arrival we were told that they were really busy so we'd been upgraded to twin rooms rather than quad shares. Really nice place. We were told by a woman on the way to dinner to carry a torch so we didn't stand on any snakes (cue major girly panics) and when we got back to the room we had another roomy in the shape of Jock the Gecko. We invited a few people in for a drink on our balcony and before we knew it, we had 12 people sat on a balcony no bigger than the size of a parking space! Funny few hours getting to know people and the phrase of the trip was decided - "and another gay baby is born"......