Darvin

Hi Everyone, I'm now up in Darwin in my Hostel. It's 30degrees here!

So, since my last update I've been on a 9 day trip from Alice Springs to Darwin. I did it with Adventure Tours, who are a tour guide company who take small groups on these sorts of trips. I did a 3 day tour around Alice Springs, which is the red centre of Australia. The first day was a trip to "Kata Tjuta" which is the aboriginal name, or "The Olgas" as their known by others. Kata Tjuta means "many heads" names this because they a large group of domed rocks the aborigines thought looked like many heads. They are red from the iron oxide (rust) absorbed into the surface of the rocks. We did a 8km walk around the Valley of the Winds. It was a nice walk, not too strenuous but nice to stretch the legs after lots of sitting on the bus. Pictures below.

After the walk we headed to the sunset look out, and watched the sun set over Uluru (Ayres Rock), there's a pic of me there below. We had Champagne! And biscuits too, which was a nice, unexpected touch.

After this we drove back to camp, where that night I slept in a "swag". This is basically a bed rool, where you put your sleeping bag into it and sleep outside. So I slept under the stars that night! IT got a little cold around 4 in the morning, but we were getting up at 5. Lots of early mornings, I'm looking forward to sleeping in a bit longer in Cairns, but not too late there'll be lots to do and see!

So the next day we woke up early to watch the sunrise over Uluru. Unfortunately the walk up the rock was closed, which I was very disappointed about. However, the base walk, which went around the rock was good too. There were also aboriginal rock art sites, where painting which were thousands of years old still remained on the rocks around uluru.

That afternoon we drove to Kings Canyon, and after sitting round the camp fire that evening, we woke up the next day for our exploration of Kings Canyon. We did a good long walk around the canyon, and saw the impressive amphitheatre which is a circular rock formation which looks much like an amphitheatre. Kings Canyon pic below. We then drove back to Alice Springs, where I stayed for the night.

The next morning I departed on the three day tour to Darwin. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn on our way to Banka Banka. We stopped off at the township of Tennent Creek, which is a small town along the Stuart Highway. The Stuart Highway is a long highway running from from Alice to Darwin. It is named after John McDowell Stuart who was the first man to explore from Adelaide to Darwin.

We also visited Devil's Marbles that afternoon, which are named becuase they look like huge marbles. Pic Below.We stayed that night at Banka Banka cattle station, where we saw a short presentation about the cattle ranching in the area. The famers there eat the cow's willies! Ewwwwww!!!

The next day we visited the famous pub at Daly Waters, which is famous because all over every wall are a collection of photos, IDs, underwear, hats, basically anything a guest wants to staple up on the wall they can. It's very impressive the amount of stuff they have up there! I didn't see anyone I knew on the walls though.

We then took a lovely swim at Mataranka natural springs, which are geothermically warmed, and so were lovely and hot, and very refreshing!

We then headed to camp at Katherine Gorge. The next day we went canoeing down Katherine Gorge, which was amazing! We had a good 3 hours which was awesome. After that we drove to Darwin, where my hostel was for the night. A free meal was included at a local bar that night, which was cool.

5am the next daywe drove to Lichfield park, where I saw crocodiles! Both Freshwater (freshies) and salt water (salties). Only the salties tend to eat people.

We camped that night much like we had for the nights before. I had slept in permanent tents, with 4 bunk beds in each. They stop the mosquitoes and flies, but that's about it. You're exposed to the outside air. However, I found that I was too hot most of the time, it's about 15-20degrees at night so pretty hot under the sleeping bag!

Yesterday we went swimming in Jim Jim falls, which was lvoely and cool. The falls were quite dry though, as it is the dry season up here. It's monsoon forest around here, and in the wet season, the water rises right up into the trees about 6-7 metres! So you can see leaf remains right up high in the canopy where the surface of the water is during the wet season!

So late this evening I fly to Cairns, via Brisbane which is a long flight. I arrive in Cairns tomorrow morning, so I'll be quite tired after the night flight. But after 4 days in Cairns my trip down the east coast begins. I'll be able to access Internet Cafes pretty easily down there, so more to come soon!