The drive gave us yet more amazing views of this huge country. The roads are quiet, the driving was easy. We arrived early afternoon and stayed at a campsite located by Katherine gorge. At reception we were advised that a colony of fruit bats had taken up residence and that we might want to check out the pitch before we committed. We pooh-poohed the idea and signed on the line. There were huge fruit bats in almost every tree around us, the total must have been...

We had our first taste of real life on the road when we overnighted at one of the free rest stops between Katherine and Kununurra. We were fortunate enough to have arrived early and were able to bag a nice shady spot, so far so good. Here, there was a genuine sense of community as many of the older people gathered in the communal area, had a beer and a laugh like they'd known each other for years (maybe they had). We cooked dinner and sat back to enjoy sunset. As...

We arrived in Darwin at some ungodly hour. It was neither morning not night, clubs were closing and nothing was open. We arrived at our hotel and of course we were too early to check in (some 10 hours too early), in Asia this would have been no problem they'd have found us something, here though nope, no way, are you mental? We slumped into to a semi comfy settee in the foyer, napped and waited for daylight. Around 6:30 we left the hotel to see what Darwin was ...