DARWIN

The flight did not get us off to a good start. Flying through an electrical storm (which you could see out of the window of the plane, about 100m away!) and then being told we will have to circle Darwin for 30 minutes as it is too dangerous to land... then getting re-routed and landing in place called Katherine in order to refuel... By which time we have both fall asleep and the next thing we know there is a huge crunching noise and we look at each other with dread - 'We are going to die' - we are certain the plane is about to go down... No worries though as it was only the plane landing and we have touched down in Katherine where we spend an hour or so refuelling and waiting for clearance to take off again. We eventually land in Darwin 3 hours late on a 2 hour flight and check into our hostel in the pouring rain at about 1.45am GRRR!!!

The hostel turns out to resemble a prison!!! It is very clean and we have a private bathroom (plus quite cheap for Darwin which turns out to be very expensive for somewhere in the middle of nowhere!) but that is about all you can say that is positive! After a brief walk on the Esplanade, which is cut short by the 35 C heat and 98% humidity, we go and sort out our hire car for Kakadu. All sorted at 50 bucks a day, bargain, so we set off exploring - walking through the Botanical Gardens to the Museum & Gallery of Northern Territory. The Gardens are not really that great plus the sun comes out and nearly fries us to death so we are sweating our asses off by the time we get to the museum - but it is very good and unbelievably it is FREE to get in and we spend a really good afternoon there admiring all sorts of NT related stuff, especially 'Sweetheart' the stuffed 12 ft crocodile which is their prize exhibit! (although Mark swears its made of plastic). So rejuvinated are we by our museum visit that we even walk the 3km back to town, plus to be honest we have no idea when the next bus will be it being Sunday afternoon - it'll probably be on Monday in this town! We finally arrive back in the town in urgent need of a beer and some dinner - we end up in a BYO pizza place sharing a large pizza for a change - but imagine the shock when we ask where the bottle shop is and they tell us that they do not open on a Sunday in Darwin - what the funk????!!! So with that it is time for bed - good job we have some wine stashed in the room or there would be trouble.

Next day, we wake up knowing that we have loads of boring jobs to do as we have only planned the trip as far as Darwin so we have to sort our sh*t out. We start by doing washing (tedious and expensive), then progress on to booking the greyhound journeys as far as Adelaide, followed by accommodation in Kakadu, Litchfield and Alice and car hire to visit Uluru etc. All of this sorted out we are feeling pretty damn pleased with ourselves so decide to splash out on the backpacker buffet which we have found out about at 'The Vic' $3.50 for a plate of food (as opposed to $15-20 everywhere else in town) we are overjoyed until Mark sees the size of his helping 'Is that half a portion' he actually asks!!! It's not too traumatic though 'cos at these prices he can afford to have 2 dinners.

Kakadu National Park

A 6am alarm call is never a good thing when you don't have a job. Or even when you do have a job. To make matters worse it is raining like mad outside as well. But we have to brave the weather as it's a pretty big day today - Sarah drives a car for the first time since last August! Obviously this should be quite scary but given that it is just one straight road with no cars on it there is no harm done, even when she hits 152km/hr in the Yaris - did anyone know they could go that fast?? We pass a few road trains, which are not actually trains that go on the road as Sarah first thought just big trucks that pull 2 or 3 trailers behind them and thunder down the road past you making you jump out of your skin. They are dead cool. Not that much happening in 'KacknPoo' though as a lot of it is under water and it pretty much rains on and off all day. Still we are not bothered as our accommodation is brilliant - a little hut thing with a private bathroom and a BBQ outside. We drive into Jabiru to get some food for the barbie, just as well we don't need to stock up on booze though because as it's an aboriginal reserve there is a ban on selling booze!!! Thankfully it's OK as we bought supplies in Darwin (after the Sunday night no alcohol shocker) so all is well! We managed to fit in a walk in one of the few let ups in the rain and saw two Kangaroos, some parrots, a massive spider and loads of aboriginal-art so we think we have pretty much done Kakadu now. Still we might have a quick look around tomorrow if the rain stops... did we tell you it was raining???!!!

Kakadu and Litchfield and more rain

We pack up our stuff from the cool little hut and prepare to set off, when we drop the keys back at reception we are told that the road we drove in on from Darwin yesterday is now closed due to flooding, so this doesn't bode that well for today's sightseeing. Nevertheless we see a bit more of the park but pass on the river cruise as the weather is so bad; we decide we should head on down to Litchfield 300km away rather than risk getting stuck at Kakadu. The drive to Litchfield passes without incident, we only see about 10 cars on the 250km trip. When we get to Litchfield we already have bad vibes about the accommodation, so much so that when we pull up Sarah doesn't want to go inside... but we have to sleep somewhere, so in we go to meet the German owners. We are decidedly underwhelmed with the hut that we are shown to, it is really damp and although it is not too dirty inside the patio furniture outside is minging. Even worse, when we check out 'the kitchen' we discover it is in the middle of an overgrown field and has never seen a clean in its life!!! But as we are pikey poor we have to stay and we will also have to so eat at their cafe, as cooking is out of the question... at which point they advise us they are not doing food tonight. Mark is having none of it so that's it enough is enough, ze germans have met their match this time as Sarah gets her stroppy head on and says 'OK then we're off, give us a refund' it works though as suddenly we are assured that the food will be on the table for 6. We sink a few beers, have the grub which is actually quite nice, and retreat back to the crap hut to watch a DVD - thank GOD for the laptop! Sarah makes Mark watch Oliver, hmmm thank God for the laptop eh? The next day we go and visit the many waterfalls at Litchfield National Park which is really pretty and not (yet) under water so that's a result.

We later find out that the rain over the last few days is the worst rain for 60 years at Kakadu and Jabiru is shut off for nearly a week (imagine being stuck somewhere they don't sell booze!); all the roads we travelled on (which consists of 3) are eventually closed off, all within 10 hours of our leaving!!