Darwin has a sad history of being virtually destroyed by Japanese bombers during WWII and by Cyclone Tracey in 1974 which ran up to some 200 + kph! Most people use it as a jumping point to go to the nearby National Parks! It was great meeting up with my mate from the UK who is currently living in Perth (lets call her "Asbo"). We went to go and watch the sunset at Mindil Beach which was awesome but for the fear of a croc coming up from behind and the deadly box jelly fish in the sea. We soon booked onto a tour of nearby Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. Money well spent is an understatement. Kakadu in particular was just mind blowing. We went swimming in rockpools, waterfalls and got a flavour of aboriginal history and art at Ubirr where we hiked to see some amazing views of the surrounding landscape. En route to the parks, we went on a boat cruise along Adelaide River which is infested with completely wild crocs. As they hear the boat engine they start making their way to the boat knowing that buffaloe meat is going to be dangled off the side for them to "jump" for. I had some reservations about going on the cruise as i wasnt sure how natural it is for crocs to be jumping for food which is presented to them but i have to say it was quite breath taking to see a 5/6 meter croc literally hoist itself out of the water using the strength in its tail and grab the dangled meat in its jaws. Crocs are known to attack and eat each other and we saw a (front) legless female croc who clearly has no difficulty in surviving. Crocs are also known to eat their babies and thankfully we didnt see any of that. The captain of the boat gave an interesting running commentry which included telling us that wild crocs still inhabit all waters at Kakadu and Litchfield and the last attack on a tourist was in 2003 when a guide took his group to a rockpool for a swim at night when the crocs are their most active. Sadly the 24 year old German was taken by the croc as she swam with her twin and was found later by rangers with the body stll in its mouth. We were all therefore a bit nervous when our tour guide encouraged us to swim in the Parks' various waterfalls and rock pools and to some extent i think we were all keeping our fingers crossed that we would have a croc free swim.
The wildlife was just amazing and we saw gigantic termite mounds, water monitors (lizards), a whole host of birds including whistling and black kites, galas and barolgas, rock wallabys, wallaroos, toads, spiders and snakes (yuk). The days were spent swimming and hiking up to beautiful waterfalls and rockpools and evenings were spent camping, having ozzie BBQ's and playing a digeridoo around our campfire. We were lucky to have a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide who was very informative on aboriginal culture and native wildlife. One of the highlights was seeing an aborginal family fishing on Arnhem Land (which we didnt actually enter as a permit was required but could see from the other side of a river). Various parts of the northern territory has been given back to the Aboriginals and they have their own communities where no non aboriginals are allowed to enter. Kakadu itself is Aboriginal owned land which has been leased back to the government to use for tourism.
Time was pressing so we started to make our way down Alice. We had a swim at the beautiful Edith falls, stopped for a drink at the famous Daly Waters pub went bathing in the Mataranka thermal springs and watched the sunrise at the sacred Devils Marbles which the Aborginals believed were gigantic eggs layed by the Rainbow Serpent (its a weird and wonderful rock formation). Everynight was spent camping in our "swags" under the moon and stars. Once again we saw lots of wildlife but the highlight for me this time was seeing some wedge tailed eagles gliding elegantly in the air.
