Who calls it 'running writing'?!

The other day, I found out something new to tease Aussies about. It all started when Laing commented on my handwriting. "Hey Kate, why do you have such funny handwriting? It's running writing, but with a few print letters in there."
"Sorry, Laing, what was that you called it again?" I asked, a bit confused
"Running writing. Plus a few print letters."
"You mean cursive?"
"...what's cursive?"
RUNNING WRITING! Jeez, Australia! Please feel free to tease any Aussies you know about that silliness.

Well, Darwin was good fun - humid as, but fun. We went to a few markets, including one that had these two funny fire twirlers. They had all this older jazzy music on and were a bit vaudevilleish. It reminded me a bit of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain during that fiddle song, actually. Really quite splendid. We also toured the Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory where we saw Sweetheart, a stuffed 3.8 metre saltie that they caught off the Daly River after he got too aggressive with boat attacks. They meant to just capture him, but he got caught on a sunken log when they were towing him back and drowned. So they stuffed him and put him there. So big! They also had some interesting skeletons of a giant flightless goose (Imagine a 1 metre tall goose!) and a marsupial rhino. I'm starting to think there's a marsupial version of everything now! Rhinos, lions, tapirs, elephants, etc. I also bought my plane ticket home - I arrive on the 15th of December at 12:!5am. :)

We then headed to Litchfield National Park where we saw our first frill-necked lizard...and then proceeded to honk at and try to avoid running it over since it was in the middle of the road... There's some lovely swimming holes as well as magnetic termite mounds. The area floods so the termites can't burrow underground like most others do so they build up! Being ever so clever, they've discovered that if you build the mounds in a north to south orientation, the mound catches the best sun and keeps it warm - important since they are so temperature sensitive. Tons of these in a field. Pretty awesome how they developed their directional senses. As for rockpools, Wangi Falls is this pretty big lagoon with two waterfalls falling down a huge cliff. Mind you, freshwater crocs inhabit the area and sometimes salties get in....but everyone went in anyway and it was quite refreshing. We stopped by another one called Buley Rockpool - it's all these small but quite deep rockholes along a stream. Those were great too. We were sitting there, enjoying the water when up popped a yellow-spotted water monitor, just chilling next to us. We saw that one at the Gunlom rockpool in Kakadu as well, but we weren't sure what it was. It hung out for a few minutes, then made me nervous by slipping back under water and disappearing. Lovely.

We headed down the center...saw a lot of dead cows on the side of the road...still no big red kangaroos. We did stop off at the Devils Marbles - big rocks shaped like, well, marbles. We walked around there for a bit, taking fun pictures and being attacked by flies, giant grasshoppers and spinifex (this grass that grows all through the center and is SHARP!) Alice Springs came up next...it was okay. It was cold and rainy when we got there, all the people we met weren't very friendly at all, and one of those sensor doors decided to close on my foot and not get off until I forced it off even though I was walking through the door. We did stop in Bojangles Saloon for a beer since Dad went there and said it was like an old western saloon with the swingy doors and such. It was a pretty funny pub - they like to take the piss, I think! The bathroom doors had Pull handles on the left side of the door, but it was a Push door and on the right. The toilets were clear plastic with barbed wire inside so when you glance it looks like you might hurt yourself! The sinks were also quite funny - you turn one handle on, but a sink down the line somewhere else turns on so you have to walk down there to wash your hands and such. :) I was quite amused. We also popped into the Reptile Centre - we saw another frill-necked lizard, among lots of other cool things- and enjoyed a talk about reptiles...then were made to hold them. I first held a Bearded Dragon - if you've ever seen one, they look sharp and painful! But the points on their sides feel like rubber. Pretty awesome. Then I held a Blue-Tongued Skink, who kept trying to nestle under my jumper...and finally, I held a 7 kilo Olive Python named Honey...which wasn't as bad or terrifying as I expected. For a snake, Honey was quite...sweet. :) Crazy. She certainly loved Laing as well. She kept trying to nestle in his fluffy hair and taste his face. Afterwards, they said it's seeing if you're edible - I think Honey may have thought Laing was edible the way she kept tasting him...maybe he shouldn't be around snakes anymore.

As we've been driving down, Laing and I were both waiting for this deserty harshness that everyone knows the center for. I mean, this is the harsh, inhospitable center where you hear about people dying these horrid deaths! Here I am, pretty much picturing something like the Sahara Desert with a bit more shrubbery but no, all we see is green grass, tree and wildflowers. We finally asked a petrol attendant and apparently this year is a fluke. At that point, they'd gotten 30 inches of rain already, when they usually get 2 for the whole year! We were worrying about making it up north before the wet season so that we didn't get flooded in/out, but apparently we should've worried about the middle since the road was flooded one evening and we had to go back a bit. It'd gone down the next day so it was all kosher. At least all the rain cooled down the temperatures a bit.

We finally made it to Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park. We started at Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) where we did lots of walks and a Ranger talk - all very interesting about the rock itself as well as the 3 Aborginal tribes in the area who consider it one of their sacred sites. Interestingly enough, many people make the trip to Uluru mainly to climb it (I didn't even know you could climb it....but anyway), but you shouldn't as it's a sacred land. In the Cultural Centre, there's even this big bit asking you not to climb. The Aborigines and Rangers want to close it since many people have died but they can't because of tourism (they're afraid people won't come if they can't climb it, plus tourism companies use political pressure to keep it open as well as advertise it heaps anyway). Also, these tribes itry to avoid conflict whenever possible, plus they believe it's part of our culture to climb Uluru. So, although it's forbidden in their culture to climb it, they allow us to do so because they think it's part of our culture. I thought that was interesting. And thought it quite rude of all those people to just go ahead and climb it anyway when they seriously ask you not to. Anyway, Uluru is amazing! It may be just a giant sandstone, but it's so neat! Definitely worth the trip into the middle. We managed to get up at 5:15am (!!!) to make it to see the sunrise over Uluru - very pretty - and see a sunset on it as well. Great pictures of it to upload later. In the same park, there's also Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas) which was so fantastic too! We did the Valley of the Winds walk, which takes you through them and it was lovely. Really gorgeous! Because of all this rain, there were streams and waterfalls as well as heaps of wildflowers and goodness. My favorite walk, for sure.

Next up was Kings Canyon, where we did a lovely 6 km hike along the rim of the canyon - it takes you up to the very top and you hike around it with a great view of the canyon itself, the land out below and the domes on top. The top's super interesting as it used to be the floor and sand dunes of the Inland Sea that used to be in Aus ages ago. Some of the stones have fossilized ripples on them as well as a few critters. Plus the domes have these crazy cross sections where wind blew sand from all different directions and it all hardened. There's a great little lush area in the middle of the canyon called the Garden of Eden as well. It was quite a nice hike!

Now time to end this super long post. We're currently in Port Augusta starting to look for a wee bit of work to get us through Adelaide, Melbourne and back to Sydney. Wish us luck!