Darwin, our first port of call in Australia and where we were to catch our connecting flight to Alice Spings. Because of this we were only here for 24 hours.

Once we got inside the airport terminal we were greeted by customs who ask you if you have certain things in your bag...wood, carved items and any food items being some of them. I stated that I had nothing of the sort in my bag, as did Barry and proceeded through the gates. Had I realised that we were about to put ourselves and our bags through a security check I may have been a little more truthful and admitted to the carved elephant, wooden coulouring pencils and other wooden souvenirs from Thailand I had in my handluggage. Not to mention the tuck bag and other food we had brought with us in Barry's bag. Queuing up I began to sweat as the sign mentioned the massive fine for not declaring these items. I was sure they would be picked up but thankfully (or is it) Australian security didn't really work and we got through fine!

We arrived in Darwin at 4am and had previously thought that we would wait in the airport until our flight departed the folowing day at 6am. This was probably the worst idea we have ever had as by the time we landed we were absolutely shattered from all of our previous days travelling around. We had not realised that landing at 4am would not be a good idea as no where would be open to give us a place to stay, oops! This meant that we were going to have to wait in the airport for a few hours. We found a clear spot on the floor in the arrivals area of the airport (which was tiny) and curled up with a backpack, handluggage, towel as a blanket and a blow up pillow (thanks Harvey)! This was not comfortable to say the least, in fact it was possibly the last thing that you would want after a 6 hour night flight into a new country! It wasn't helped by the fact that I couldn't sleep and Barry could...I could tell as he was snoring, however, he tried to convince me he hadn't managed to sleep!

We finally got ourselves to a hostel only to be told that check in time was 12pm...it was 9am. We went for some breakfast while we decided what we would do. We found a hostel that would allow us to check in straight away and went for the best nap ever. I don't think I even moved from the one spot and there was a pneumatic drill going outside! Once we woke up we thought we should make some effort to do something while we were in Darwin as it was an amazing sunny day. We went for a walk to the Botanic Gardens and looked around at the rainforest area and decided that as great as trees are, they all looked pretty much the same. It was probably one of the hottest most sticky days ever and coupled with us being very tired this wasn't great so we decided to head home after standing in an empty air conditioned room for half an hour. I think it took us a good hour to do a 20 minute walk. We got back and then went to find a nice place to eat. We then went and walked along the esplanade and watched the sunset (which was amazing). After dark we walked around a bit more and then saw the biggest bat in the world...I think it may have actually been Batman. This promted us to call it a night and head back to wake up bright and early for our flight to Alice Springs.