Our road trip started relatively early Thursday morning in our little Hyundai Getz (light blue - Sarah's favourite colour!), and headed towards Litchfield National Park, the smaller lesser known National Park. We got to a little town called Batchelor and found out how much of the park was open - it is wet season here at the moment, the monsoon part of wet season and for the weekend the forecast was for the monsoon rains to arrive!! Anyway, most of what we wanted to see was open, which was lucky. We went straight to the magnetic termite mounds which look a bit like headstones in a cemetery, they are quite a bit bigger though. They all point north-south within 10 degrees which is unbelievable, especially when you can see over 100 of them! At this spot there are also some huge termite mounds, maybe 4m in height, these are known as cathedral mounds and can exceed 8m in height and are over 50 years old! The termites are very useful in the ecosystems over here as they aerate the poor soils and when a mound is left and decays lot of nutrients are replaced in the soil.

From here we drove to the other end of the National Park to go and see the Wangi Falls which were very spectacular due to all the rain they've had, although the walk we wanted to do had been closed as a cyclone came through here not too long ago which was a shame. We then went to Tolmer Falls, which are at the end of a deep, steep sided gorge, they were pretty huge. In the caves around these falls there are very rare Orange Horseshoe Bats so you can't really explore around here too much as they are highly protected! We were now really hot so we headed over to a swimming hole at the bottom of Florence Falls, it was so nice to cool off next to some waterfalls. We then sweated again climbing back up the 150 or so steps back to the car before driving the 3km to Buley Rockhole which is a number of swimming holes along a 900m stretch of river, this place was beautiful and because it was the wet season we had it all to ourselves! It was so relaxing here, I could've stayed all day. The dark clouds began to roll in so we drove to find some accommodation and stayed in a lovely German bloke's hostel and breakfast was included! That evening we went out for a nice dinner, I had crocodile steak which was in a really good sauce and pretty tasty too, kind of like meaty fish/chicken. When we got back we were treated to a huge thunderstorm with impressive lightening, the thunder actually shook the room we were staying in!!

Friday after our breakfast we left Litchfield which had been fantastic, it is such a beautiful place and quite a small and accessible National Park. We were going to Kakadu National Park, which is loads bigger, lots more driving to do between places but apparently very beautiful and a World Heritage Site. On the way though we stopped on the Adelaide River to do a 'Jumping Croc Cruise' there were 17 people in quite small metal boat sat only about 1m above the water. We were going out to watch wild saltwater crocodiles be fed from the boat from a rod with meat hanging off it! The crocodiles are amazing, they climb so high out of the water - up to three quarters of their body lengths to try to get this meat, all about 3 feet from where we were sat! They are so big and powerful, we definitely didn't fancy a dip in this river!! We were also lucky enough to see a couple of adult males, both over 5m have a bit of a scuffle. One had entered the others territory and when one of them hit the side of the boat you could really feel how strong these animals are, it was a bit scary for a minute! Our guides also fed a White-Bellied Sea Eagle using the same technique this was fantastic to see. On the return back to the jetty they also fed loads of Red Kites, there were maybe 12 of them circling the boat at one point!!

After all that excitement we drove into Kakadu and stopped at the Bowali Visitor Centre, unfortunately most of the main sites were closed (a lot of them are 4WD only so we knew we couldn't do most of it anyway). By this time it was mid-afternoon so we decided to do a short walk to see some rock-art and natural shelters used by the aboriginal people at a place called Nourlangie. It was pretty cool to see all this, on the way back to the car the walk went via a viewpoint of the surrounding escarpment (big sandstone cliffs) the views were terrific, although after being there for no longer than 2 minutes the heavens opened and it started to chuck it down, we got back to the car soaked dripping wet! We had planned to do another walk but the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon so we went to a place called Yellow Water to stay in their 'budget accommodation.' This turned out to be no more than a cell-like room with a double bed and air-con unit, it was also the most expensive room we have had in 8 months traveling, we were gutted! Ah well, beggars can't be choosers and in that weather camping or sleeping in our tiny car just wasn't an option!

We went to a visitor centre for opening time first thing on Saturday morning but after half an hour we decided that noone was going to show so we went on a short walk to another great lookout. The humidity was terrible again so we went back to Bowali visitor centre to watch a DVD on Kakadu throughout the seasons which was really interesting.We have seen Kakadu in the wet season when everything is green and lush, it is hard to imagine what it would be like in the dry season with everything hard and dusty!It was then time to slowly make our way back to Darwin. We had a brief stop at 'Window on the Wetlands' before the monsoon rains arrived, the drive home was a nightmare, the rain was so heavy. We did stop at a place called Humpty Doo, but there wasn't too much to see there, just a funny place name, so we just went back to Darwin.

Our last few days in Oz should be pretty quiet, the weather forecast is monsoon rains for the next week. So we will just sort ourselves out and try to recoup some of the money from that awfully expensive cell! We are sad that Australia has come to an end but really excited about all the prospects of South-East Asia, back to budget traveling, we hope things are as cheap as people tell us. We also hope that it is as good as people tell us! We have now been traveling for 8 months, it has gone so quickly. We fly to Singapore on Tuesday, we'll probably next update from there, our last 4 months of traveling through South East Asia and China!

Until then it's goodbye from Oz and until next time be good and if you can't be good be careful!

A & S xxx