Friday night I landed in Darwin, at the moment I got out of the airport I could feel the different climate straight away. Over here it is a little bit more humid and much warmer than Canberra. that is nice; it feels like southern Europe, a Mediterranean climate is my favourite! That will change in two months though; it will be much warmer and humid, unbearable for most people who are longing for the Monsoon to arrive.
Not only climate wise but also the vegetation shows that you are in the tropics. It is so much different than any other place I have seen in Australia, and it is still the same country!
Darwin itself is a small but nice town, most of the areas are easily accessible by foot, however Saturday I took the bus to the Parap markets, there was so much good food and fresh fruit, yummy! Even bananas were affordable, $6 a kilo, whereas I pay $16 in Canberra if they are available anyway…
Sunday morning 7 am I was picked up by the tour guide from Kakadu Dreams for the tour I booked to the Kakadu National Park, an Aboriginal area. The guide himself was pretty cool, also from Canberra, and someone who guides and does many other things so he can be a tourist himself as well. When the other members of the group came in as well we departed, two other Dutch ones, two South Koreans (HiddinGu) and 4 Singaporese.
The trip started with a Croc cruise, we took a boat on the Adelaide river that was full of crocodiles. The dangerous ones are the salties, the freshies only attack you when you annoy them. Saltie does not mean that they only live in the sea, unfortunately, they were the cause that you could not swim everywhere…
After a good lunch we continued our trip to some rock art sites, it is amazing how Aborigines created beautiful rock art, some of the art being older than 50.000 years. The whole park is a mix of rough rocks and mountains and tropical trees with unsealed roads, which are red, a very typical Australian picture.
Next stop was a swimming pool which was very much necessary because it was so hot, afterwards we went to the Yellow Water river to see sunset, magnificent!!!After another 1,5 hour drive we came to our campsite, literally in the middle of nowhere. No radio, solar electricity and absolute silence, this is impossible in many parts of Europe! We built a camp fire with logs we collected on our way to the rock art site and built a fire and ate Kangaroo meat, very delicious!
Next morning we woke up with the same fire, baking our toast and departing for the Twin falls, which we reached over a 4WD track. That was pretty cool, rough surface and crossing rivers full of crocs!
We had to take a boat to the falls and a walk we ended up at a small white beach at the falls, magnificent! So beautiful, I loved it!! After going back to our 4WD we went to another fall where we could swim as well. I swam to the fall itself and took a refreshing shower!
When all this came to an end we returned to Darwin over other unsealed roads, the size of the area is rather impressive, Kakadu National Park has the same size as the Netherlands, with only a couple of thousand of people living there. Not to mention nearby Arnhem Land, which should be even more beautiful, what a great country is this!
On the beach of the waterfall I met a German girl who was planning to travel to Western Australia as well, she travels together with a girl friend, and together with two other Dutch blokes I met in the hostel we will travel to Broome in the 6 berth camper van. From Broome to Perth I will probably travel with the Dutch guys. All the people I speak to, even my tourguide who has been to so many places say that driving from Darwin to Perth is one of the most beautiful in Australia and Broome is one of the loveliest spots, cannot wait to go there!
The photo's I took can be found at the usual location
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