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wed: freaking hot. Walked around darwin, not much here in all honesty. The city centre is just 2 streets but the waterfront area is really nice with nice apartment blocks, grassed area, beach and a wave pool. Decided to book a tour for tomorrow as I think ive pretty much seen all of darwin. Its a 3 day tour of kakadu national park. Had an early night again as have to be up at 5am for the tour.
Thurs: tour is in one of those lorry 4x4 things, something that wouldnt be out of place on the paris-dakhar rally. There are 9 of us on the tour, 6 french girls, one irish guy and 1 english guy. Kakadu national park is situated to the east of darwin and is the size of wales. Today involved a lot of driving to get deep into the park. We first stopped at corraboree billabong on the mary river. Where we took a boat ride up the billabong on a wildlife tour. We saw crocs, eagles, kites, kingfishers, ducks, geese, the biggest flying bird in australia and loads of other birds. Then had another long drive up to Ubirr. Ubirr is a site of a number of aboriginal rock arts. Theres a big rook formation on at the top there is a superb lookout over the floodplains (this is the rock scene filmed for crocodile dundee). We then had another drive to our camp ground for the night, muirella park. We pitched the tents but left the cover sheet off as it was too damn hot. We all got a nice surprise at 2am when it started raining and it was a mad dash to get the cover sheet on. Apart from that had a great sleep.
Friday: very early start and looked like I was the last one to rise, so shows how well I slept. Today we started off with an aborigine talk about their lifestyle here in the outback and the way they hunted, cooked, lived etc. we had a go at spear throwing and also playing the didgerydoo (however u spell it) and after that we went to twin falls. We climbed to the top of the falls and took some photos. The water weas pretty low so we were able to go right to the edge. With a fantastic view down the gorge. We then walked back down and down river where we caught a boat which then took us up river and a view of the falls from downstream. Unfortunately there was no swimming as there were known to be crocs in the water. The next stop was at jim jim falls. This was more impressive even though there was no water over the falls, the 'lagoon' though was amazing, in this chasm that the water had eroded out of the rock. We were able to swim here and took full advantage of the settings and the tranquility of having the place to ourselves. Apartly it was around 30m deep. After jim jim we setup camp at mardugal campground.
Saturday: another early rise, today a little later at 6am. On the schedule today was more swimming at barramundie gorge, where there are a series of 'rock pools' that you can swim in. this was a lot of fun and a lot of high jumping off the rocks was involved. We then went to see white lilly billabong, which was just a quick stop, saw some crocs there. We then went to warradjan aboriginal culture centre, which was like a mini museum about the aboriginies of the area and their history. But in all honesty what we read we already knew as our guide had pretty much explained it all too us, so just to show it was also a very informative tour. Finally we went to see some magnetic termites. Theres termites are called magnetic termites because they build their mounds facing north. Hard to explain but if you think of a blade on a sword, they are like that design. Very thin but the sides have a large surface area. The reason the termites do this is to get as much heat from the sun as possible during the right time. They are the only termites in the world to build their mounds like this. We got back to darwin around 6 (I got a room 3 of the girls as we have planned to travel to broome together), it was then a very quick wash and change before going out for a group night out at the old vic pub. Where we had free food and cheap beer. However we were all pretty knackered and so all headed home around 11.
sun: went with catherine and anais to the rental place to see on the off chance that we could get a relocate. We were extremely lucky as they had one, and damn, it was a nice one. Its a long wheeled base mercedes sprinter van. Accessories included toilet, shower, tv & dvd player, aircon, microwave, bbq and king size bed. After sorting everything out with the vehicles and stocking up on food etc we didnt leave darwin till 2pm. We had a straight drive to catherine, anais and catherine drove their land cruiser and julie and I followed in the campervan. Julie had some friends in catherine so we met them and they took us to the hotsprings there. We had a quick swim and then drove for our night stop at victoria creek. Didnt get there till 9pm. It was quite a strenuous drive, constantly looking for wallabies on the side of the road, almost had a couple of close calls. Can see why they dont recommend driving after sunset. We had some food and then went to bed as we were up at 5am.
Monday 6th: up at 5am, got the vehicles sorted and were on our way. We stopped an hour later fro breakfast. In between the endless hours of driving we stopped at lake argyle. A vast lake, unfortunately we couldnt swim there, so we had some lunch, took some photos, stocked up on fuel and headed on. We got to purnululu bungle bungle NP late in the afternoon and like all other attractions in the kimberley, they're at least 50km from the main road. Unfortunately it was an off road track and took us a while to get there. So much so that it went pitch black and we decided to stop. We made some lunch and then drove back. I think here the girls got taken aback by everything. We were right in the middle of nowhere, pitchblack, I mean I couldnt see my hand in front of my face black (the nightsky was out of this world) and Im not sure whether it spooked them a little, along with the tiredness etc but I could see that they wanted to get back to some sort of normality. So I told them I would drive back, of which none of them objected and anais was very glad. It took like an hour to drive back to the campervan. When we got there their spirits perked up and they were happy to drive on to halls creek. We got into the campsite at 8pm but the office and everything was shut, so we just decided to find a spot and sort everythig out in the morning.
Tuesday: in the morning the office was still closed so we just left. Today we are going to wolfe creek meteorite crater. Like the last attraction, this was way off the main road, 200km. The crater is the 2nd biggest in the world (1st being in arizona). We walked up to the crater edge and then down into the centre, took some photos and then headed back. Luckily we found the gas bottle that had dropped off the car on the way down. We then had another couple of hours drive to fitzroy crossing, we we had previously decided we'd get there early, stay at a proper campsite and actually have an enjoyable relaxing evening. A powered site cost $30, around 20pound. We had a nice swim in the pool, made a lovely meal, couple of beers and then after all four of us were on the kingsize bed watching a dvd.
Wednesday: another early morning pre sunrise wake up. Today was just a straight drive to broome. We needed to return the vehicle by 3pm, all washed and cleaned. We got to broome at 12. went to the tourist info, dropped off our backpacks at the hostel, grabbed some food and then went and washed and cleaned the vehicles. In the evening we went to coles for food, ate and then had an early night.
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