We spent our first four days or so in Darwin at the Cavenagh Hostel.  That could be meant literally, as there's so little to do here that we spent most of our time back at the hostel where we could at least get some blessed air-con relief...

The weather in Darwin is just horrible.  I don't know why anyone would choose to live here for a number of reasons, but weather is top of my list.  From December to April it rains torrentially every day, and it's very hot and humid.  Then, April through December it doesn't rain much, but the temperature rarely dips below 32C in the day.  Every day we've been here it's been 35C, with very high humidity and no breeze.  Even at night it's around 26-28C!  The air is so thick and humid you can almost see it parting as you walk through it.

Then there's the town itself.  At seventy thousand, the population is smaller than Rugby, yet it's the biggest town for thousands of kilometres.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't one small street of shops and one with a few pubs/restaurants.  Strangely, despite the small town feel of the place, it has still managed to have miles of industrial estates and grotty small businesses stretching out in every direction from the centre.

So all in all we were really quite depressed with the place, and ready to leave after four days.  However, we had already committed to doing a housesit for a lady who had got in touch with us through a website we signed up to.  So, on our fifth morning we were to be found waiting at the front of the hostel amidst a sea of backpacks, cool bags and holdalls.  Kate picked us up and drove us over to her home, a unit or single floor flat, where her elderly Dad was impatiently waiting to get to the airport.  We had to sit through an hour of pleasant but awkward conversation before their taxi arrived and they cleared off, leaving us with such wonders at our disposal as air con, a dvd player and an oven (all the better to cook roast dinners with!)

It was a nice place, reminded me of a Spanish holiday unit with the layout and the tiled floors.  Of course, we didn't get it all to ourselves, we were looking after Kate's cat, a rather grumpy fourteen year old madam called Jasmine.  She was lovely with us most of the time though, and got a lot more confident as time passed.  She ended up jumping onto the bed the last couple of days and meowing at us to get her her breakfast!

So for most of the 12 days we were housesitting we did very little; we worked our way through Kate's (rubbish) dvd collection, walked the half hour to the big shopping centre every other day and always nearly melted in the process, and rented out heaps of dvds from the rental store, especially on Tuesdays as it's only $1 (40p) for any dvd - bargain!

Our one trip whilst in Darwin was to Kakadu National Park - reputedly one of the finest in the world.  With a tag like that I suppose your expectations will always be too high, and whilst it was really good and occasionally wonderful, I wasn't as blown away by the place as I'd hoped to be.  The main problem was that the wet season only ended a week or two before we went there, so most of the roads are still flooded and closed, limiting the areas we could get to.  Paradoxically though, the flooding that impeded our sight seeing also improved it ten-fold, as we were told and read a number of times that to see Kakadu at this time of year is to see it at its finest.

Lush wouldn't even begin to describe the place.  Everywhere was green.  All through the wetlands 6 foot high spear grass grew thickly, but all the fields were full of water at least a metre deep.  So at first glance you would see one metre high grass growing in fields, it was actually two metre high grass growing in metre deep wetlands.  Oh, and full of crocodiles too - although thoroughly hidden in the water.  Adds a touch of spice when you get out of the car though!

We drove through the flooded grasslands, on into eucalyptus forests, and eventually came to the Nourlangie area.  This is an outcrop of rock - a huge, mountain of an outcrop - and a walking trail is laid out around a section of it, which we now set out upon.  We were lucky enough to end up behind an Australian couple who had a friend over from England.  Lucky because the husband used to work in Kakadu as a guide for ten years!  He invited us to join them as he explained the significance of the various rock-art sites we came across; an offer which we happily accepted.

I'm not sure if I'm capable of appreciating Aboriginal rock-art, at least not in the way Aborigines themselves do anyway.  To me, and most westerners, their outlook and beliefs are so strange.  Paintings for them aren't about creating something nice or beautiful and they don't think of it as art.  They paint to tell a story, or sometimes just for fun.  Some paintings they believe are a real person - not depicting a real person, but actually a living being on the rock.  Other paintings can only be seen by certain initiated members of certain tribes.  Just as many Aboriginal words are only told to certain tribe members, and are unbelievably closely guarded secrets.

For me, the most impressive thing about art like this is its age.  But Aborigines will often happily paint over a painting that's thousands of years old with something completely different.  We have barely skimmed the surface of their culture, and I can't pretend I comprehend a lot of what I do know!  I think my favourite painting was of a kangaroo, quite a vivid red, which was around twenty thousand years old.  Now that's old!  But then to Aborigines it could be far less important than one painted ten years ago.

We thanked our guide and moved on to a nearby look out.  It was another colossal hunk of rock perhaps 250m long and 100m at its highest point, and shaped like a door wedge.  We scrambled right up to the top.  All the way up the ground was like a lunar landscape, pocked, very barren.  At the top the view was magnificent and all-encompassing.  We could see for miles across a carpet of green to the huge escarpment which ran for the length of the horizon (and for a good 300km past it too!).  The escarpment looks just like huge cliffs, and that's what it was a few thousand years ago before sea levels dropped.

It was getting late so we checked into our 'dorm' in Jabiru.  We were the only people staying in the whole caravan park, so we had a 4 bed eco hut to ourselves.  It was really nice, double bed, fridge, sink, lamps etc, and the walls were all metal mesh, so when the lights were off we could see all around us outside thanks to the low level lighting dotted around outside.  Didn't actually spot any wildlife but we could hear so much of it, we could really tell we were in the middle of a national park.

The next day we went on a cruise tour of Yellow Water. At $45 each this was a serious indulgence for an hour and a half, but we decided that as we couldn't really get to anywhere else ourselves we might as well.

Was it worth the money? No, but it was really good. The wetlands are close to the Alligator River, so get flooded spectacularly every wet. They were probably about 3-4km sq, and though not at all yellow, are exceptionally beautiful with lush green buffolo grasses growing thickly everywhere, along with loads of eucalypts, bushes and so on. This area changes so much over a year. Two weeks previously, had we beed foolish enough to be in the exact same place, we would have been under 20ft of water. And if we came back in 4 months time most of yellow water would be charred and bone dry, burnt by the ranger - contolled fires. As it was, it was perfect. Expensive to see, but perfect.

We now had to cover about 175miles in less than 2 hours - unlikely. Somehow though - thanks to Katie's Formula 1esque skills - we were only 5 minutes late and managed to get on the boat.... It was time for Jumping Croc Cruise!

We were in a small, 20 seater boat on the Adelaide River. The basic premise is that they tempt Mr. Crocodile with a tasty chunk of dead piggy on a pole, and he'l leap out of the water! They are so well disguised in the muddy waters, and they just casually drift over to the boat as you go upstream. I didn't find it al all scary, but god, to see one of them slowly cruising at you if you were in the water - I actually couldn't think of anything worse. Of course, you probably wouldn't even see one coming.

They got about 5 to leap out of the water, literally 3 feet from us. One they got to the bank, where it went crazy slithering all over the place trying to grap the meat. Sadly its tail flipped ip most of the mud on the whole bank all over me, but what can you do? I wasn't going to take it up with the croc, that's for sure.

The cruise lasted an hour, but it absolutely flew by. We couldn't leave the Top End without seeing them in the Wild - what an experinece.