When we arrived in Darwin we were very happy to discover that the temperature was over 30 degrees, a nice change from New Zealand. The only problem was that Darwin's nightlife is Australia's answer to Ibiza, full of club 18-30 types vomiting in the gutter. The one exception to this was our favourite Country & Western bar which lured us in by playing 'Achy Breaky Heart' and kept us entertained with their Guns n Roses pinball machine.
Despite the charms of the Country & Western bar, we didn't hang around in Darwin and instead spent our time in the nearby National Parks. On Debbie's 30th birthday she went back to her roots by visiting Litchfield National Park (OK so they spelt it wrong but full marks for effort). There we swam in some waterfalls, and went on a 'jumping croc cruise' where we saw saltwater crocs propel themselves out of the water using only their tails. You can't really swim anywhere in the Northern Territory because of the danger of becoming their lunch. They are so mean that mother crocs will even eat their own babies. We heard a story about a German woman who was recently eaten by one of them when she went swimming in a billabong with a group of friends while they were all drunk. Apparently one of the group felt something brush past their leg, then looked around and she was gone. The others quickly got out of the water and shone a torch back where they were swimming and saw a sea of eyes. The crocs had all been sitting there waiting for their chance. Debbie had nightmares for the next few nights and refused to go within a hundred metres of the water.
On returning to Darwin, we hired a battered old Nissan and drove ourselves to Kakadu National Park. We borrowed a tent and spent our nights camping in the bush, sleeping with the tent windows open so that we could see the stars. On our first night, we both woke up in the middle of the night, because the moon was shining right into our tent. Debbie needed to go to the loo, and bumped into a wallaby on her way back to the tent.
The next day we headed to Ubirr and saw Aboriginal rock paintings which are up to twenty thousand years old, although some were painted as recently as the 1960's. We camped out again but the experience was marred by the army of mozzies that descended on us, and we ended up eating dinner inside the car.
The following day we took a walk along a river bank and saw three big fat salties sunning themselves on the opposite bank, and trees full of flying foxes. Then we went on a cruise of the Yellow Water River which was stunning. Our aboriginal guide told us lots of fascinating facts about the local wildlife, for example, the aboriginal name for a saltwater crocodile is a Ginga. He also told us about the local Firestarter bird, which catches most of its food by hanging out around near forest fires and eating the insects and small animals that are driven out by the fire. When all the animals have been eaten it picks up a burning branch and carries it over to another section of forest where it will deliberately start a new fire to get more food. We also saw a mother bird feeding its baby chicks in their nest.
On Graeme's birthday we flew to Alice Springs and the following day we left on a three-day tour to Ayer's Rock/Uluru. Despite the temperature being over 30 degrees in the day, the temperature in the desert falls below freezing at night, but we were kept nice and warm by our swags (canvas sleeping bags with mattresses built into the base), and the fact that we all slept in a circle around a big bonfire. We could see thousands of stars as we went to sleep, and saw loads of shooting stars too. Thankfully no creepy crawlies got into our sleeping bags in the night, but our poor tour guide was woken up in the middle of the night by a kangaroo doing a dump right next to his head, and then he had to get up and move his swag as the smell was keeping him awake. After seeing the sun rise and set over Uluru, and doing the obligatory base walk in the baking 32 degree heat, we headed to the airport and caught our flight to Cairns.
