Early starts were to became a regular occurence as I started the first leg of my 11 day trip from Darwin to Alice Springs. The first three days were dedicated to exploring Kakadu and Lichfield national parks, although as we found out right from the start the weather can have a huge impact on the actual itinerary and sometimes what you thought you had booked to do might not necessarily be what you actually end up doing. But at 6.20am the 16 members of the 'Kakadu family', as we became known over the next few days, were all picked up in our 4wd vehicle. There was a good mixture of people from around the world - English, Swiss, French, German, Australian, Dutch, Spanish...and we were all set for our fun packed adventure tour.

I got to ride shotgun for the first day which meant I had a fantastic view of the park. Unlike the back seats it's pretty hard to fall asleep in the front, mainly due to a distinct lack of a headrest, so while the others slept their way through the first part of the journey I made the most of the exceptional views and running commentary from our guide Stu. The weather had made an early impact on our itinerary as recent heavy rains meant that the road we should have taken was now impassable, in fact it had been washed away, so we had to take a much longer route to get to where we would camp on our first night.

Not that it really mattered though. First stop of the day was for coffee and breakfast at Adelaide River where the pub/hotel has the buffalo from Crocdile Dundee stuffed and sitting proudly inside. Then it was a long drive into Kakadu national park for our first swim at Moline waterhole. There are only certain places where you can swim in the park due to the threat from crocodiles in the water, a problem that is made worse in the wet seasons when the flooding makes it easier for them to move around. But we were assured that this waterhole was safe to swim in, and after letting a few people try it out first I was happy that no big jaws were going to be chomping on my legs. It was nice to cool off for a while as the heat and humidity here was just as bad as in Darwin. We also had lunch at Moline before going to Bowali cultural centre to find out a bit more about the park and it's flora and fauna.

As it cooled down in the afternoon we went to Nourlangie Rock (or Anabangbang as the aboriginals prefer to call it) to see a large number of aboriginal paintings on the rock face. The paintings are done with a substance called ochre and this was the first chance I'd had to really see them up close. They are a pretty amazing sight and the colours remain so bright after so many years. Often the same piece of rock was used over and over again, each time telling a different story and if you look hard enough you can sometimes see through to some of layers beneath. On the walk we also came across a black walleroo, which is a rare sighting as there aren't many around. Our guide said he'd only ever spotted one other in 10 years out here, so that was pretty special. I also used this occasion to have my first taste of green ants. I'd been offered this gourmet temptation several times throughout my travels around Australia but somehow alwyas managed to refuse politely each time! This time though I was feeling brave and after being assured that they just had a sharp citrus tang I took the ant in my hand and licked it's bum! To my surprise it really did taste of citrus, so strong that it left a tingling on my tongue. Aborigines often boil them up into a drink and use as a medicine for many different things, but you have to be careful as in too larger quantity they can cause you to hallucinate! I think one was more than enough for me.

Our camp for the first night was at Jabiru. A jabiru is actually a bird, it looks a bit like a pelican crossed with a heron and we'd seen one earlier in the day. Their beak is so strong that it can crack the head of a baby crocodile, but thankfully they don't usually seem too bothered by humans!. Fortunately our campsite was a series of permanent tents which meant firstly that we didn't have to put them up ourselves and secondly, given the amount of rain around we wouldn't wake up floating in the morning. It was a very wet and stormy night at Jabiru, with huge bolts of lightening that lit up the whole tent and venturing outside was not something to be taken lightly as you sunk into the increasingly wet and boggy ground in a vain attempt to sunction your way over to the toilets. But spirits were not dampened as we had a birthday to celebrate. One of the guys in the group was 50, so we broke out the balloons and party hats and used it as an excuse to buy cakes too!

The next morning we almost got a lie in, not having to get up until 7am - luxury! But we were glad of the coolness that early in the morning as we climbed up Nawurlandja rock, a very tough climb over 300m high, but with a stunning view from the top. You could see around in every direction and had a great view of a huge billabong at the bottom, no doubt full of crocs just waiting for their next unsuspecting victim to dip their toe! We saw some more aboriginal artwork on the way, although this was slightly different to the previous day, this being classified as dynamic art.

To allow us all to recover and dry off from the sheer amount of sweat pouring out of us we headed for the relative sanctuary of the cultural centre at Warrodjan where we were able to watch a really interesting video called 'The last of the Nomads', and as the name suggests it was a tale about the plight of the last two nomadic aborigines of a particular tribe in the Gibson desert, Western Australia. I was so taken with it I might even buy the book to read...

Then it was lunch at Mary River before a 3.5km walk to Motor Car falls. This was spectacular with a wonderful plunge pool underneath. With a bit of effort you could actually swim behind the falls and sit on the rocks looking up at the water cascading down - beautiful. Lucky we were already wet though as it started to rain on the way back so it was a rather damp crowd who arrived back at the campsite for our final night's bbq. The campsite even had it's own bar, which is a real bonus when you see how remote some of these places are, but the only downside was when we all got thrown out becuase they wanted to close at 9.30pm on a Friday night! I reckon we were the most customers they'd seen all year and just couldn't cope!

Our final day of this leg of the trip saw us drive to Lichfield national park. We stopped at the Banyon tree for a quick coffee before it was more waterfalls and swimming. We went to Florence falls and again were able to swim behind the falls although this pool had a pretty strong current which took a bit of negociating - not for the faint hearted unless you fancied a short trip down the river and a few rapids! More relaxing was our second stop, Buley rockpools, which was more like a series of outdoor spas you could just lounge around in and enjoy the view.

As we made our way back to the bus the rain came down again, but this time it was unrelenting and for the next few hours it was just like a mist surrounding the bus. But thankfully for our final stop the skies cleared and we took to the river for the jumping crocodile cruise. I was a bit sceptical about exactly what this meant, and we'd already be forewarned that this was the first week that the boats had been running becuase the river had been too high for the past few months meaning you were likely to be wading through prime croc territory. But once on the boat my scepticism quickly disappeared as we saw croc after croc on the river and they really did jump, so high some of them cleared their entire bodies from the water in pursuit of the dangling meat! We were introduced to the largest croc on the river, Hannibal the Cannibal, measuring in at a massive 6m long and with a snapping jaw you'd be well advised to avoid! We also met Michael (surname Jackson...), aptly named becuase he has an albino white head but a dark coloured body - wierd huh?! But just to make sure we didn't get too bored with the crocs (as if!) we were also able to see some whistling kites up close as they followed the boat down the river grabbing their food out of the air.

So full of stories and amazing sights we headed back to Darwin for a somewhat forgettable free meal at the Vic Tavern. But fortunately it was St Patrick's day so after a few drinks and the customary pint of Guiness a good night's sleep wasn't long in coming...