Leaving Gold Coast, Sonya and I
decided that we would put an end to our boring funk. So we did! We took a train
back up to Brisbane and from there flew to Darwin. We arrived around 1 am and
caught a shuttle straight to our hostel. Things were surprisingly lively for
that time of night, but we were pooped so we went straight to bed.
Our
first day in Darwin we took off from the hostel to go on a self-guided walking
tour and we were all excited about being in a new place. It only took us about
30 seconds to start sweating and within an hour we were completely hot and
exhausted. The weather in Darwin was hot (it was around 35 degrees Celsius,
which is about 95 degrees Fahrenheit) and VERY humid. We still saw a good
portion of the area; the most notable was a huge park and the waterfront near
the harbor. On the walk back we ended up going through an outdoor mall and we
stopped in nearly every store just to take advantage of their air conditioning.
We thought we were being subtle until in one place a man asked if we needed any
help and only as we politely said ‘no thanks, we’re just looking’ did we look
around and notice that it was all old man clothes. Busted! Luckily, he didn’t
seem to care too much if we walked in and just stood under the air conditioning
vent for a few minutes.
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| Big fella! |
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| Termite mound |
In
order to explore the outback we took two trips out of Darwin. The first was to
Litchfield National Park. On this tour, we stopped to look at different kinds
of termite mounds. The first kind was lumpy and really tall and brown in color,
while the second was flat and more of a black color. In the field of all black
ones they looked sort of like tombstones, it was very eerie. We also spent a
couple of hours in the morning on the Adelaide River feeding Crocodiles. I
think that this was one of my favorite parts of the trip because we were down
low near the water and the crocs at times were no more than a foot away from
us. All that kept them from nibbling on us instead of the meat dangling over
the water was a small-ish metal boat. Our guide would tie a chunk of meet to a
string and use a stick to hang it out over the water. He used this to get the
crocs to come up close to both sides of the boat and then even got some of them
to jump out of the water to chomp on their prize. It was pretty spectacular to
watch! I was very happy to be in the boat though and not in the water, I
definitely would not want to be a crocodile snack!
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| Second swimming hole |
We
stopped for lunch at a very beautiful waterfall that we couldn’t swim in.
During the dry season I think it is open for swimming, but during the wet
(which is while we were there) crocodiles show up so swimming is no longer a
good idea. After lunch we stopped at two waterfalls that we did get to swim in.
The first was two large waterfalls that fell into one big swimming hole and the
second was a series of pools with small falls in between. The second one was my
favorite; it had a decent sized jumping rock that was really fun.We ended the day by watching a beautiful sunset over the ocean.
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| First swimming hole |
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| Sunset |
The other tour that we did was a
two-day deal out to Kakadu National Park. This was our big adventure that we
had been looking forward to for weeks and it certainly lived up to our
expectations!
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| Mary River/ Billabong |
The
tour left at 6:00 am and I packed all that I would need for the 2 day journey
into a purple flowery pillowcase, which didn’t exactly make me feel like a
daring explorer, but it was easier than carrying my whole pack. We drove a lot
throughout the day, but never for more than about and hour and a half at a
time. Our first stop was again to see termite mounds. Although Sonya and I had
seen them before, it was still interesting because the new tour guide had some
different things to say about them. After the termites, we went on a river
cruise on the Mary river/billabong (a billabong is not only a clothing company, but also a permanent body of water). I’m not
super in to birds, but we saw some really cool ones on the river. We also got
to pick giant leaves and wear them as hats. As they dry they form to your head
and provide lots of shade!
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| Aboriginal Rock Painting |
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| Nadab Lookout |
After lunch we went on a walk in
Ubirr to see amazing Aboriginal rock paintings. Our guide, Rosie, told us
aboriginal stories that accompanied the paintings along the way. I would
re-tell them here, but I don’t remember all the details. I can tell you that
they were very interesting though! The way that Aboriginals share stories is by
telling the simplest version possible, so even though the stories sound like
children’s bedtime stories, each has a message that described some aspect of
the Aboriginal way of life. We had to hide out under one of the larger
overhangs for a while to wait out a thunderstorm. Somehow I didn’t get any
shelter and got soaked, but I didn’t mind because it meant that I wasn’t hot
and sweaty for once. Once the storm passed, we walked up to the Nadab Lookout,
which had an unobstructed 360 degree view
of the whole area. The view was honestly breathtaking and incredible.
Sonya and I both agreed that it was one of our favorite places in all of our
Australia travels. The same storm that had passed over us was still visible in
the distance and we were able to see the lightning striking in the distance. It
was also the perfect location for some cheesy tourist photos.
The only downside to being in the
outback so far was all the flies! They were beyond obnoxious, but luckily we
had been forewarned and brought along some mosquito nets. I could put up with
them much better when they weren’t in my face.
After
the Nadab Lookout was the Bardedjilidji bush walk through sandstone rocks. It
was a nice walk, but I can only get excited about a few rocks before they all
start to look the same. It was a nice stretch for the legs, but I was still
more excited about the lookout than the sandstone. That night we stayed at the
tour company’s camp which was equipped with showers, cabin tents and a kitchen
tent. We dined on pasta with meat sauce and after showers headed to bed early.
The
next morning we were up again at 5 am for brekky, sandwich packing, and a quick
camp clean up. We got to spend the day swimming in two different waterfalls
again. It never gets old!
The
first one was really fun, the waterfall was tall and the water deep. The pool was
big enough to be satisfying to swim across a couple of times. We spent a good
amount of time also just lounging on some rocks in the cool water and talking
with the other people in our group. There were 16 of us plus our guide, Rosie,
and people were from all over. There were 4 Americans (including Sonya and Me),
some French, an Italian, and English girl, and several Germans. It was fun
talking to people from all over. It was also one of the only times we
encountered fellow Americans on our journey.
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| Fall with the Freshwater Croc (can sorta see him) |
When
we arrived at the second waterfall we discovered a freshwater croc cruising
around the pool. We all sat there and watched it for a while debating whether
or not to swim. In theory, it is ok to swim with the freshwater variety because
they are smaller and if they bite you it is compared to a dog bite. Still
pretty intimidating though! And to add to the hesitance, someone spotted a
snake in the water tangled in some tree roots. Rosie declared it to not be
poisonous but we were still suspicious. Eventually the croc went under water
and we one-by-one ventured into the water. I opted to quickly jump in and swim
across to a rock, sat for a few minutes then quickly swam back and jumped out.
I stayed only in the areas where I could see the water. Still counts though, I
can say I swam with a croc!
Unfortunately,
swimming was the last tour activity, after that it was a long drive back to
Darwin.
Random Darwin Thought: Sonya pointed out that it would be a
terrible place for a honeymoon because it’s so hot and humid that all you do is
sweat all the time. Not the most attractive state to be in.
In between our two tours we went to Crocosaurus Cove where
we got to:
Hold
a baby croc!
Watch
them feed really big fish
Watch
them feed an olive python (a very large snake) and lizards
Learn
Darwin’s war history
Hold
a smaller olive python and 2 kinds of lizards
Look
at all the animal exhibits and watch them feed all the big and baby crocs (it was much more exciting in the wild)
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| Baby Croc |
It was a really small, but fun place where we could come and
go throughout the day in order to see all the interesting feedings and talks,
but not have to eat the expensive café food ourselves. It was a day well spent.
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