Hi from Mary River, home to the biggest concentration of salt water crocodiles in the world. The only crocs we have seen so far on this trip have been in tanks!

An easy 90 minute drive from Darwin we arrive here at lunchtime. We pitch our tent and have just sat down when the "wallaby show" begins. Over 20 wallabies hop out of the bush and spread themselves around the camp and eat! Awesome!

We are watching the wallabies when Emily trips and falls on the tent. It is then we notice our air poles are leaking. This is not good as we have no way to fix them. Mark takes out the poles and manages to string the tent up between the trees while we wait for replacement poles to be shipped from Sydney to Darwin (we do have one night where the 4 of us sleep in a 3 person tent on a double mattress which actually was not as uncomfortable as it sounds!) We will have an extra night at Mary river as the poles are not due to arrive until Thursday.

The humidity in this place is massive. Our clothes are stuck to us! Thank goodness for the pool which we frequent every day. It is not fenced which I thought was a requirement. Fortunately we are camped far away! It is the only place to get some relief from the heat. Definitely no swimming in the river! Little signs everywhere with massive chomping jaws keep reminding us of this!

William meets another boy his age. They have fun playing cars and running under the sprinkler. He is not the best influence though so we are not too sad when he leaves the next morning!

We like this campsite, it has lovely big trees for shade, grass and lots of birds (we lose half a loaf of bread to a crow and ibis). The ablution block is a prefab though and there is no air circulating, you can't spend much time in them. It's not nice. I have a shower and my face has droplets of sweat on it before leaving the bathroom.

The mosquitoes like to play. Mark gets eaten quite badly on his legs and so buys the heavy duty mosquito repellant from the camp shop. It costs a mere $18! Just $10 more than a supermarket!

We hire a golf buggy and explore the campsite. The dust this thing kicks up is crazy so Emily sits in the front on the drivers lap. We check out the 2 walks, the bamboo walk is pretty cool and the drive snakes through bamboo (surprise)! We see one wallaby on the wallaby walk and stop to have a wee walk on a swing bridge. Emily falls asleep so her and I abandon. William then has a drive with Mark as his teacher. He loves it although is not the best at staying on course!

We take a drive in the Mary river national park to Shady Point for a bit of crocodile spotting. The lookout is quite nice and shaded and although it has only been a 5 minute walk in the sun it is welcome relief. We spend quite a bit of time there watching some crocodiles cruising and climbing onto the banks of the river and rising to the top of the water and showing their eyes and nostrils and then disappearing. We visit Mistake billabong and see loads of beautiful lilies and some ibis and other birds.

One evening we do a sunset wetland cruise on the Mary river. I love the cruise but the kids are a bit past it today. Emily wants to walk around the boat (and I can't blame her as she loves practising her walking) and William is interested at the start but tiredness (and silliness) is setting in!

The highlight is seeing some crocodiles. We see a fresh water and several salt water ones. Mark spots a 4 metre salt water croc lying on the banks of the river. He snakes his way into the water and glides without a ripple. It is a bit unnerving watching him lengthen his tail as he disappears into the water. At the same time the guide advises us that 5 people died being eaten by crocodiles in the Northern Territory last year.

The weather has become really humid and we are advised that the build up to the wet season has started already (this is 4 weeks early). The crocodiles are confused as this is an indicator that it is time to mate!

The bird life is amazing. I am quite taken with the juvenile Jacana that runs across the lily pads and looks like it is having the time of its life. William likes the honey bee eater which has lots of bright colours. To be honest I really love the bird watching and am quite surprised by this. We see darters, egrets, kites, cormorants, herons and fish eagles. We see both a female and male Jabiru, Australia's only native stork.

It is amazing to see all the life in the billabong. In the middle of such an arid region there are loads of plants, fish and birds.

We watch a spectacular sunset from the boat before returning to shore and racing the mosquitoes to the car.