Darwin

We arrived in Darwin after spending another 24 hrs on the Ghan. This included an enforced 4 hour stopover where they make you get off the train (at 8am into 38 oC heat) at Katherine Station. The only problem being that the station isn't airconditioned and is 6km from the town centre, now, the only way you can get to the town centtre is to pay $9 for a ticket on a bus that the Ghan lays on to take you to town - swines. After a bit of breakfast we ended up holing up in the public library where we sat for a couple of hours reading the papers.

We arrived in Darwin, eventually, to stifling heat and extremely humid condtions. Rachael has already had a good whine about the weather up here and not entirely without reason. Due to everyone being constantly hot and sweaty it is a place of short tempers and arguments, obviously myself and Rachael didn't succumb to these tendencies... much!

We decided to hire a car in order to drive out to Litchfield National Park and Kakadu National Park. Litchfield is basically a smaller version of Kakadu that you can swim at, Kakadu itself is infested with fresh and saltwater crocs so you can't really swim there.

After hiring the car a few other people at the hostel expressed an interest so we ended up starting out to Litchfield in a little Hyundai Getz with five people crammed in, myself, Rachael, a French guy and two Swedes (the race not the vegetable). Litchfield was brilliant, we went swimming in a couple of plunge pools (see pictures), saw some massive 20ft termite mounds and drove through some fantastic rainforests. Upon our return to Darwin we went to Mindle Night Market whcih was fantastic. There were foods from every corner of the globe, fire jugglers, native bands playing as well as all the usual tat for sale that you get when a bunch of hippies gather together.

The following day we set out to Kakadu having replaced our Swedes with a German. As many of the roads in the Northern Territorys have no speed limit it didn't take long to get to there (of course I drove responsibly though!). We stayed the night in Kakadu and went to Ubirr and Noalungie to view some Aboriginal art that was 5000 years old in some places. We even managed to tack on the end of a tour group being shown around by an Aboriginal which was very informative. Among the paintings were several thousand year old warnings regarding radiation (Kakadu is home to a massive Uranium reserve) as well as warnings against breaking the 'incest law' which is very strict by all accounts (no looking at or being within 30 metres of a sibling). Our last stop before returning home was to go to Gunlom where there is a lovely waterfall and plunge pool that you can have a swim in at your own risk as it sometimes does have crocodiles in residency. The plunge pool was about 100 metres across and after convincing Rachael to swim over to the waterfall with me she was certain she was about to get eaten at any moment. We returned home, cleaned the car as best we could to disguise we'd been driving it on unsealed roads, before taking a well earned rest - it's hard work having fun sometimes.

A last note on the heat, it's amazing how quickly you adapt, Rachael has stopped moaning and despite it never dropping below 23 oC I actaully felt cold brielfy the other day.

We're leaving Darwin on Wednesday morning and that pretty much signals the end of our travels. It will take two and a half days to get back to Adelaide at which point we'll be picking up the car to head back upto Brisbane. A week after boarding the Ghan for the last time we expect to be back in Brisbane looking for jobs and somewhere to live.

It had to end sometime....