Our arrival was at 4am so our first impression were not all that brilliant. My first sleep in Aus was on the floor of the international arrivals lounge and was not all the comfortable then we had to wait hours for a shuttle bus to come and take us to our accomodation. Finally we did get in and we liked what we saw, it was funky and clean with a kitchen, and the obligatory plastic croc by the side of the pool (which no hostel in Aus would be complete without!) and even though Darwin is the biggest city in the northern territory you could still walk round the main centre in about 5 minutes.
We had a couple of days to chill out so we headed off for a walk, and it was amazingly hot! Even though weve been away for 7 months the heat and humidity was incredible, but we trugged on and headed out to a aquarium specliasing in the reef. We found the collest little hideaway ever, it had a reef in a smallish tank that was self sustaining. The water hadn't been cleaned in 16 years and the fish were never feed the reef looked after itself it was brilliant. We saw the only box jellyfish alive on display in the world. Even though he was only a baby he was about 40cm long and almost transparent it took us ages to find him, it was odd staring at one of the deadliest animals to man in the world and i looked not much more than a bit of slime floating in the water! He also showed us the feeding of the barrimundi (massive fish that are very yummy....but you wouldnt wanna stick your fingers in there with them!) there was a little fish in there with them that had been put in with some of his mates 18 months ago and he was the only one that still lived on their scraps the rest all got eaten, he learned stay away from the sharp front end!! WE also saw the stone fish, odd creatures that can't move they just wait for food to come close enough for them to jump up and grab it and they were uggggggggggly things! There was loads more little bits, but it was really educational and so much fun! We also had a bit of a mooch at some of the old historical bits and peices some that were destroyed by the hurricane in the 70's and some older, but to be honest we were quite lazy and didn't do much apart from sample the local night life until our kakadu trip.
We roused at 6am and set off. We set off for the wilderness, and it was beautiful. We camped, cookeed our own food, saw crocodiles and swam in some amazing pools. The guide taught us all about the local flora and forna and all about aborigional culture from the area. We also got to see some of the cave paintings, climb up to this pool at the top of the waterfall in the earky morning, it was brilliant. Downsides to it were the flies, OH MY GOD never seen flies like this! If they wanna land on your left eyeball they wont stop, no matter how many times you swat them away until they have succeded, annoying! The heat was incredible and the humidity matched it, the climbs were hell but worth it, and oddly enough everyone on our tour spoke fluent German but us...its wierd when the shoe is on the other foot and everyones not talking english!
Once we had this leg of the tour over we began the journey south towards Alice springs which was so much fun. Our guide was really funny, we had a disco bus, where she'd put the music on full blast and we'd drive round doing the YMCA with the lights flashing on and off! She took us to Australia's oldest international airport and got us to pretend we were flying, we had the worlds longest oub crawl going (like 800km) you had to have a beer every stop and we had a road kill tally! In amongst all this we managed to see some of the sights including the tropic of Capricorn, a mango farm (and teied some really nice mango wine), but our first major stop was Katherine Gorge. We did a small hike and mainly just chilled out in the river swimming pool which was nice cus it was soooooo hot you couldnt walk on the floor barefoot! And that night we got to sleep under the stars...took a little persuading as we were concerned about snakes but after a lot of reassuring words like theres no snakes around, more scared of you than you are of them, havent seen one round here the entire time ive been doing the job...ALL LIES!!! After being coaxed we went to the bathroom to clean teeth etc and lo and behold what should be sliming its was around the bathroom, heading for the shower cubicle that some bloke was showering in! Still we braved it and we slept out, but alas the elements were against us...and it pissed it down. Not the typical light shower they get in the red centre desert normally, a full blown inland hurricane! The tents we being blown open and filling with water and no where was dry even the guide was confused! On the final stint of our journey we saw the Devils marbles some procariously balanced large rocks on top of little ones, and got some really cool photos. The final place was lunch at Daly Waters, a really famous pub in aussie, which as a lot of things are in Australia was in the absolute middle of no where so quiet that we stopped in the middle of the town to play skittles on the main road! It had loads of memorabilia that people have left hanging up on the walls (you know the drill bank notes, flags, shoes t-shirts and of course female underwear!) But it was such good fun that we all met up as a group later on for a meal in alice springs and had some traditional aussie tucker, in the form of Kangaroo Steak and Camel pie...both were delicious.

The following day another early rise and we set off for the red centre. En route we stopped at Kings Canyon and had to change pur plans as the temperature was 45 degrees and our tour guide (who was a major stick in the mud!) wouldn't let us do the big walk we all wanted to :( but we did a smaller one and got to get back into the air conditioned van sooner! After this we made camp for the night...at Ayres rock or as close as your allowed to, and we watched a majestic sunset, it really was beautiful. The next morning we got to see sunrise and got up at the wee small hour of 3.30am and to be honest it wasn't all that spectacular...it was very cloudy, hardly ever rains in alice or gets humid and lucky us it did both whilst we were there! but it was incredible, we didnt climb it as we flet that it was disrespectful to the aborigionies (who request that you don't climb the rock as its sacred to them) but we walked the base that took us about 3 hours just to walk around the thing! We got to read all about the local stories how the rock got there etc and it was just amazing, the photo's do it no justice. There we also the Olgas which were just as impressive in their own right but they aren't red in colour and more rounded in shape, but still beautiful. Then it was all over we shot back to Alice Springs, grabbed another bit of Roo and then off ot Sydney and our xmas apartment.

**SORRY THIS IS A SLIGHTLY RUSHED ENTRY BUT INTERNET IS SOOOOO EXPENSIVE OUT HERE I HAD TO RUSH TYPE IT******