We waved goodbye to Derby last weekend and headed for the extremely sunny shores of the Dampier Peninsula. This is the area north of Broome that is home to pearl farms, turtles, red sand cliffs that kiss white sea shell beaches and many, many cowrie shells. Oscar has developed an all consuming passion for cowries. Over the three days at Cape Leveque, Oscar spent at least two hours every day wandering the vast sweep of sand hunting for the perfect Cowrie. Then ...

Ned, leaping in to the depths of Manning Gorge. The jump was at least 5m. Tom is about to go too, on the right.

The stupendously lovely Manning Gorge.

Sometimes I feel like the bridesmaid but never the bride. I have ended up working in the town of Derby which appears to be the fake pearl next to its creamy Paspaley Pearl cousin town Broome. Broome has the dazzling Cable Beach, Derby has miles of mud flats. Broome has the romantic pearling history, Derby has the Boab Prison Tree and the rather more prosaic cattle shipping history. It lacks a town centre and any sort of aesthetic beauty. However, and I can't r...

Spent 4 days exploring Kakadu National Park. It's a massive area, 20,000 square kilometres which is divided into seven major regions. It's a difficult place to sum up - I think because it is so massive and so much of that area is just the same. To look at it, as with so much of Australia, you would never guess that a stupendously beautiful spot like Barramundi Gorge for example is less than 10 minutes drive off the main drag. Best to look at the pictures for th...