There are two horrible things trying to attack me. Evil bloodsucking mozzies and the wretchedly persistent face-eating flies. Mozzies are bad enough, but the world has them, I suppose. And my horrible swelling allergic reaction is just my genes, I guess (Gee thanks, parents). But the flies....they just don't take no for an answer! They follow you EVERYWHERE and go for the eyes and ears and nose! WHY?! Why do the cavities in my ears appeal to them?! I don't understand. Anyway, I'll be happy to get waaaay down south and far away from these evil flies once we get down that way.
Well, we left Cairns about a week ago and headed west. We stopped by Normanton to see the statue of Krys the Savananah King - the largest crocodile ever recorded and verified. Krys was killed by a woman back in the day and was 8.63metres long - 28 feet and some odd inches. It was SO BIGGGGG. It's head was like the size of me! We continued on and made it into the Northern Territory. NT is an interesting place. It's very, very flat - much like North Dakota, and no one seems to care much about rules. The speed limit is 130kph - very exciting! We stayed at the caravan park in Daly Waters and had a pint at the pub - it's the oldest licensed pub in Australia. We swung through Katherine as well - we'll stop by the Nitmiluk National Park on the way back down and up to Kakadu National Park for a few days.
Our first day there, Laing and I climbed up the Gunlom escarpment and there were heaps of freshwater rock pools up there to swim in - don't have to worry about crocs since it was fresh and high up! (Can't really swim anywhere else up here...salties'll get ya!) So, everyone knew the pools were up there because they talked to the Ranger, but I didn't - Laing had talked to the Ranger since i was making afternoon tea and forgot that they were up there so I wasn't wearing a swimsuit! As it was hot as and the flies just wanting to eat your face...well the only logically thing to do was dive right on in fully clothed. Quite refreshing too - the wet clothes keep you cool on the way down the escarpment. Later on, we did a little hike to see some ancient Aboriginal rock art - that was pretty sweet and I'll post my photos soon. We also hiked around a billabong - gotta watch out for crocs there too. The water was pretty far away from the path since it's the dry season and it had strunk, but it was super cool to see all the birdlife! TONS of birds in the water! Egrets, magpie geese, pelicans (are huge!!!! SERIOUSLY! HUGE!), ducks, black cockatoos, etc. just all in the water chilling. Part of me was horribly wishing for a Discovery Channel moment of a croc leaping up and catching a bird, but that didn't happen. But camping here isn't so fun. There is no breeze. It's just stiflingly hot at night. I pretty much lay awake using a Paronella Park big pamphlet as my fan. Not fun at all!
On the second day, we were going to the Yellow River wetlands at 8am for a tour with a Ranger, however, we got there at 8am and no one was there! So off we went to tour ourselves. There were two lovely little billabongs full of interesting critters. On our way back, we passed the Ranger and tour group - so we figured our clocks must be wrong. And so they were, because the middle of Aus is 30 minutes ahead of the east coast....what the heck, Australia? Normal countries do hour differences....not 30 minutes. The West Coast goes back to normal and is an hour. When I questioned Laing on this, he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away like it wasn't odd. Further proof that Australia and it's inhabitants are more than just a little bit strange. We went on a few more hikes and went to an Aboriginal pandanus palm weaving class - basically we tried to learn how to strip the palms so you can use the soft bits to weave. Laing and I sort of got it by the end, but not really. :) After that, we went back to the van, but the battery was dead for no good reason. The Ranger that was helping with the class didn't have a radio or jumper cables and told us to walk 1km to the Border Shop. Fortunately, an older European woman was there and had some so she and her husband helped us out. Not 5 minutes later, as we're driving, we hear a loud, horrible tire-hitting-something-bad pop. There was a bit of metal in the road that you couldn't see and we hit it. Laing pulled over so I could hop out of the car to check the tires and sure enough, the back left tire was wheezing air and sinking fast. So we pop on the spare and continue on our way. On the way out of Kakadu, there's the Mamukula Wetlands and as Laing loves wetlands and swamps, he wanted to stop - the magpie geese migrate there to eat bulbs in the area so it's supposed to be pretty cool. We'd been driving for awhile so we hoped the battery was charged, but I was worried as it died...for no reason. But, we risk it, and go see the geese. It wasn't that exciting. Outside the viewing platform, there was a really cute wallaby eating something with a little wagtail perched on it's back. I thought that was far more interesting than the dadgum birds. Anyway, we get back to the van and it's deaaaaaad. So Laing decides to clean off the battery terminals and check the connection - mind you, we have no reception and if anyone comes that way, unless they have jumpers, all they can do is drive somewhere and call someone for us. It was all okay though, as it was just a loose connection - hopefully we just have to buy the 2 new tires and not a new battery!
So now we're in Darwin and will have to see what cities in the Northern Territory are like. :D And see what other weird roadkill we see...in NT, they don't have fences for their cattle in parts. Because the roads aren't that highly traveled, I think they figured to just leave it out. But that means you have to watch for the cows on the road. Most have enough sense to keep off, but we did see a few dead cows on the side of the road. Along with the usual wallabies and possums...but someone had been out killing boars and these were BIG boars. I hope they wanted to come back to find them and weren't just being horrible because one was draped across a Floodway sign and a few more were propped up against other signs...oh and we saw a dead CAMEL. I haven't even seen a live camel in Aus, but yes, I've seen a dead one so I guess they really do exist here. America is going to seem so normal once I get back. :)
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