I've stayed in Darwin for a week, that was really enough for that city. So many things happened over there! For starters, it was really hot there. Because it's on the north of Australia, it's always warm over there. And because of that, it's a real partytown. So many travellers and holiday-people go to Darwin, just to go out. With the result: drunk people on the street every day. For the first time since Melbourne I finally went out again. But the most people around me were drinking so much, I don't know how to enjoy it that way...

Ahwell, I found some ways to enjoy my stay. There was not a day that I didn't swim. The hostel where I stayed had 3 small pools, enough to go for a swim every day. The beaches were not really accessable for swimming, because of the dangerous jellyfish around there. Besides the relaxing stuff, the suspension of my car was still a little bit loose, so I also had to get my car checked *again*. Yeap, car maintainence is always necessary...

When my car was completely fixed, my trip to Perth continued... I headed to Kakadu National Park (next to Darwin) together with Laura and Mae (who've been travelling with me since Adelaide) and Isabelle (German girl) who joined us. Also Niels and Armand (with Jan and Helene) were driving with me. They were on their way to Cairns, but Kakadu was also on their route. We planned to leave Darwin on Monday morning, but it took us a while to get out of Darwin for a bunch of reasons ;)

Anyways, late in the afternoon we (8 people, 2 cars) left Darwin, on the way to Kakadu National Park. We only drove for like 2 hours, because it got dark very fast. We found a nice place to stay: next to the enterence of the millitary area. The signs at the enterence say everywhere: "DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING", "BOMB AREA", "SHOOTING AREA". I got so excited to stay over there, I just wanted to see how it would work out :)

Enfin, I slept very well, eventhough it was really hot during the night. After a quick breakfast we left the place and drove into the National Park. It's a park that the Aboriginal people left for visitors/tourists, with many nice views, art sites and lakes. For the first time I saw a couple of crocodiles in the lake. But we couldn't swim anywhere, because of them. It got so freaking hot (38 degrees during the day), we couldn't shower anywhere, we were so tired almost all day... At the end of the day we found a campspot next to a crocodile lake, but we couldn't find any croc's there. Mabye that was better, I didn't want to wake up with a croc next to my tent!

The next morning we woke up early to avoid the quick high temperature in the place. We visited a few spots to see, but it got harder and harder to make walk-tours (remember... 38 degrees in full sun). We had a plan with spots to visit, but during the day we decided to skip the most of em, just to go to the first spot where we were able to swim. After about 2 hours driving, 1 hour on the regular highway and 1 hour on the unsealed dirtroads, we entered the Gunlom area, with a small waterfall and *crystal* clear waterpool on the top of the rock. That place was really the best pool I've ever seen. Clear, cool temperature, awesome view over the forrest, great sunset view. We camped over there and took another swim the next morning. After the swim we drove back to the highway, to go further back to Katherine.

We arrived late in the evening in Katherine. It took a while to find a place to stay, most campsites were closed after 6pm and staying next to the road somewhere was not really an option when you're in a town. But we found a spot on a caravan park. We were supposed to be really quiet, because we were not really the kind of people they usually let in their park. It was actually the last night with the 8 of us together before we split up, so we made pancakes and ate it around 12am. And just for your info, we were pretty quiet!

The next day... I'd say... It was my worst day of my whole trip since I left Melbourne. So many bad and unlucky things happened that day, I won't forget it. We were supposed to check out at 10am, but I've asked to check out 2 hours later, so we can clean our cars and sort our stuff out (my stuff to my car and other stuff to the other car). That was actually no problem, but just before 10am, the manager came to us... He was so angry, and especially looking at my face: 'YOU WERE NOT QUIET LAST NIGHT. YOU GOT 4 MINUTES, TO PACK UP ALL YOUR s***, AND LEAVE! f*** OFF! WHAT YA LOOKING AT? f*** OFF!' What the fack! I didn't really get scared by him, but I had no idea what drove him to say that to us... Just 2 minutes later, my car didn't start anymore! At that moment I got so pissed off... I was lucky that 6 people were pushing my car forward to get my car out of the caravan park. At the moment I actually thought that someone broke in my car to make it unstartable. I'll spare the details about it...

By using the start-cables, we drove to a picknic area to have breakfast, was a good moment to cool off for me. After the breakfast we were all doing our own things: my travelpartners went shopping for the trip, few others went to macdonnalds for pictures sharing, and I was looking for a mechanic to get my startmotor fixed. I've visted about 6 mechanics and I called another 10 of them in town, nobody had time to help me... So instead I went to the Repco, where they do a battery check for free. They told me that the battery is fine, I was supposed to find an electric engineer. I couldn't find any in Katherine! And for the 3rd time my car didn't start anymore, for the 3rd time I needed the other car to get mine started! I was sweating more and more, not just because of the hot weather... I called another few mechanics, I finally found a person who didn't mind checking it out to see what's wrong. I went over to him, and he told me my battery was really end of life. Ok... Why the f*** didn't they tell me earlier at Repco! I drove back, bought a new battery and I replaced it by myself. Yeahhh finally, I got it working again. But, the day almost passed. I was SO glad the problem got fixed, I was finally able to leave.

None of us wanted to stay another night in Katherine, so we said goodbye to each other. Armand, Niels, Helene and Jan drove further to Cairns, Mae went back to Darwin and Isabelle, Laura and I went to Broome. For me, for the first time, a trip with my own car only. After about an hour driving we camped on the first parkingspot next to the highway... I was so tired, but the day was finally over!

The next day was basically a lot of driving with a few stops through Gregory National Park, where we saw a lot of boab trees (see pics). At the end of the day, we actually arrived at the Western Australia stateborder! I was not just a border, it's a border where they check if you have vegetables, fruit and such. Eventhough it's still the same country, they don't want you to import it to WA. We had plenty, so we decided to camp next to the border and eat the most of it for dinner.

In the morning we found out that we still got a lot of potatoes and apples, so we hided it far in the back of our stuff. It was all still packed anyway. The douane let us through, so we were happy to be in WA! We went through Lake Argyle and we stopped in the first town, Kununurra, for fuel and a swim in the 'beach river'. After a nice and relaxing time in the (still) hot 37 degrees weather, we drove further to Halls Creek. It was a nice drive with many curves, because we were driving just next to the Kimberley mountains area. Shockingly, about an hour before we were in Halls Creek, I was driving with 110km/h through a curve, and we suddenly saw about 20 cows and bulls in the middle of the highway! Breaktest! Ok, no hit! If I did, my engine would've been trashed :) I was always aware for kangaroo's, but this was bigger to me... (*f***ing cows...*) When the scared cows wandered off the highway, we drove further. At the end of the day we reached Halls Creek, and we stayed the night somewhere next to an offside road.

We were pretty close to Wolfe Creek National Park, one of the biggest creater area in the world, and I remember the name from the famous Australian horror movie, I really wanted to go there. Unluckly it was about 120km driving on a 4WD track, not really for my car. In the next morning, we tried to drive on that track anyway. After 30km I didn't want to drive further... Too many rocks on the road, no 2nd car with me, no reception (in case of emergency), nobody else on the road... It didn't feel good to go that way with my car, so I drove back to the highway and drove further... to Fitzroy Crossing. In this area we went to Geikie Gorge National Park. There was a lake going towards this park, where crocs were supposed to swim in. Swimming was not advised, but we did it anyway. Nope, no croc bites! It was really refreshing to swim, again :) A few hours later we camped next to the highway again.

The next day we drove to Derby, a small town with a few atractions. There was not really much else to see, so after an hour we drove further to Broome. And yeah, just during the day, we arrived in Broome. The first thing we did... drive to Cable beach! Finally, after 17 months, I was back on the West-coast of Australia! The swim in the ocean was great! To enjoy Broome we decided to stay here for a few days on a cheap camping.

Today I wanted to buy a surfboard. There were a few ads from secondhands surfboards, but they were already sold. In the town they were selling them as well, for a bit more expensive price, so I decided to wait a few days, to buy one somewhere else. Because tomorrow we're leaving Broome, to drive further across the westcoast to Perth. I think it will take about 2-3 weeks to get there. Eventhough I've been there last year for a short time for holidays (also the reason why I went back to Australia for a whole year), it's still my favorite city in Australia. I can't wait to get back in Perth!