Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the fact that Im a little hungover and my brain is pretty much mashed up, so this is going to be really really poorly written. I've added this after writing everything because lookign back through it I dont think I can understand most of it. I think I've also managed to make an amazing story sound inherently dull. So here we go.... :)

I arrived in Darwin on the 2nd of March for my tour of the highly acclaimed Kakagu National Park

This "tour" tuned out to be absolutely incredible. The weather was dull but it all started normally. We started out playing didgeridoos and throwing spears at things around the beach with some aboriginees where I was the only one to hit the rabbit target from 50 metres away :D which gave me a 'get of washing the dishes free' card fo that night.

Next we cruised on down towards Kakadu and stopped half way for our crocidiule cruise. We met a couple of angry crocs and fed them before the guy driving us out on the river got scared of the lightning at took us back. We heard that the main entrance to Kakadu was not accesible due to the East-West road in the park being completely flooded. At this stage, another tour company we were stopped with called it a day and truned around to come back-pfff! We decided to drive a further 3 hours south to the other entrance as apparently some stuff was still open down there. We had already decided at this stage however that the tour would only be 1 day in Kakadu and then we'd drive to Litchfield National park instead the next day. :( We spent the whole journey listenign repeatedly to some aborginee tunes which our tour leader had found under his seat. These were great to start with. On the way down we passed a bridge at a place called Adelaide River. Darren told us that he'd seen 'proper flooding' a few years ago where the water had reached the bottom of this bridge which was about 10-15 metres high in the air.

When we got down to Kakadu we went in about 100m and that was it. Turns out a cycolne the night before had ripped out fields worth of trees, dropping many all over the road. Crocodiels were roaming everywhere and campsited were well and truly flooded. As it turns out, we never did manage to get into Kakdu at all but one 'Adventure Tours' group we stayed with that night did. They were right in the middle of Kakadu when the cyclone started to come over and not long later they were being evacuated by helicopter. We had nothign to do so we went on a mission to greet the guys being vacuated by chopper, although this mission was also cut short when we couldnt even see the road to drive on under all the trees, water and crocodiles :) So we went back to a nearby roadside campside and watched the 'sunset' which was an amazing display of the blanketing grey clouds turning to black. Hmmm. So we went bakc to the campsite, ate dinner, became one with the mosquitos and got suitably drunk.

The next day the tour was well and truly cancelled and we were trying to head back to Darwin when we found that the only god damn road there (The Stuart Highway) was flooded majorly, cutting off Darwin from the rest of the country (and us). At first we thought this was great and all part of what had become quite a funny little adventure, and so we got as far as the flood, stood there looking at it (and all the crocodiles) for a few minutes then went back down to the nearest roadside lodge. We saw the adventure tours group (who had now been out in the bush for about 4 days instead of their 1 or 2 day tour) in their new van go past us towards Darwin, then an hour later they were back with us looking major pissed off.

Our next visitors were the Asutralian Army who were stuck too. These guys stood about looking like a complete mess and didnt have a clue what was going on- they didnt really care too much either. We sat about here for about 3 hours playing the waiting game and then decided to head back down to Katherine (2 hours further south) where we (and loads of others who were stuck) could get savagely pissed. The plan was to catch the train down there back to Darwin which sounded great. This was much to the concern of 4 of the group members who were supposed to have flights from darwin the next morning and so they started looking into the possibility of getting helicopters. One guy from the lodge had already called a chopper and when that turned up one off our group managed to sneak a seat on it and away she went back to darwin leaving the rest of us getting a little more worried. Our funky aboriginee tour leader came back from one of his phone calls to the boss (these took ages as he had to queue for the phone for about an hour) to tell us that the trains were most liekly not going to be running after all. (We later found out that the rail bridge was completely submerged by water). By this time i had worked out that if we were going south and the situation was getting worse, we werent going to be getting back the next day either which would mean missing my flight, which would mean missing my tour in asia! Not so funny anymore eh!

I decided I'd wit till the morning in Katherine and see how everything was doing and then Id call a local flying school, a helicopter charter company, my insurance company, qantas and intrepid about changing the tour date. It all looked like it was going to be a bit of a mission, and an expenive one too. The other guys who had flights booked for the morning started looking into lying out of Katherine and calle d acharter flight company where they booked a flight for that afternoon for 1400 bucks!! YIKES!!! I had to choose wether to stay out in the busha dn hope for a miracle, or to stump up the cash. In the end I decided Id be better to take this with them instead of paying for new flights and tours.

So we all got in our trucks and put on the classic aboriginee music CD which we had listened to over and over about 50 times by now, and we got ready to head back to katherine. The overtired (and by now - 5pm - mostly drunk) Adventure Tours group who were a little pissed off at being dropped by their helicopter into another stranded area with us, were first on the road and we were just about to head out after them. Darren our tour leader put down the phone in the bar to his boss for the last time and picked up the truck keys. On his way out of the bar he made a little small talk conversation with a passing drunkard who was just going to stay at the roadside bar all afternoon and all night. The guy was going on about how the Adelaide river bridge was now open again but we thought it was just drunken nonsense. We asked the army guys who were drinking now and they dismissed the idea and got back into their beer. On the way out the door, Darren was asked by another random guy if he was heading up north now. wtf? 'yea', says the guy 'they just reopened the crossing'. So he called the local police unit who confirmed it then we got back on the road and head towards darwin. We could see the adventure tours suckers dissapearing off to the south, under the impression that they were to be stranded for the next 2 or 3 days, as the army had predicted. We made sure to let the army know on the way out (the same army that was supposed to be giving us hourly detailed updates of the situation using their special intelligence sources).

About 5 minutes after we left the roadside lodge/bar/whatever you call it, Darren spotted with his eagle eyes that our fuel was in the red. For f*** sake!! We all epxected him to turn around and head back for the petrol althought by now it was raining really hard again and we were worried about the road closure which was still an hour away. Instead he started searching frantically around his seat for soemthing. Eventually he found what he was looking for - a $1 coin. 'Heads we turn, tails we drive he says'. The rest of us looked on completely stunned - the result was that we'd carry on driving.

We managed to make it past both flooded crossings in the end. The first one,m the water had risen back to almost a metre and the road had created a waterfall to the ground below on the left, no doubt infested with crocs. The second flooded area was even more impressive and I took .loads of photos. Were the road had been was just sand and to the right of the road, running at an angle but almost parrelel laid a pefect 20m stretch of the road which had just been peeled off the floor like a piece of skin and left by the side. This was absolutely fascinating and I took loads of pictures. You can see these pictures if you take a look on CNN or something (you can prob see a better report there too)

So we got back to town, went to 'The Vic' where we had plenty to talk about lol, and got pissed there instead! And thats that. Apparently the area hasnt been flooded this badly for 5 years so if you wanna go to Kakadu national park then don't let this put you off! :)