From the Top End

One of the sights in Litchfield National Park about 150km SW from Darwin and getting close to the outback. The soil is the reddest I've seen anywhere ( I know why it's red but I'm not going to explain!) This is the end of the dry season so not much is going on but there's a lot more water due to arrive soon I believe. We had a downpour on the way back to Darwin along the Stuart Highway, a complete white out, visibility zero, for about 10 minutes Then it just stopped as though someone had turned the tap off.



Jenny and Steve Besnard originally from Guernsey and Sydneyites sinces the early 90s. They very kindly drove me out to this national park for the day, total distance nearly 300km but that's no more than a daily drive to work out here. They have not acquired a trace of an Aussie accent in nearly 20 years! The "thing" next to them is a magnetic termite mound. There were thousands of them in the area. It looked like an old graveyard..they are all aligned North and South for some reason. Something to do with the iron in the soil or the need for "space"...... out here?

This is Charlie, the water buffalo from the Crocodile Dundee films. Horns 7' 6" across. He stands in his corner in an "old" pub, and no doubt gets his photo taken quite regularly. This is also the first place I've been to out here where I would describe the Ladies loo as a real "dunny". No spiders though I hoped...it was too dark to see anyhow.

We went to the local crocodile farm where they put all the troublesome "salties" that are caught on the beaches etc. Some are nearly 5 metres long and obviously getting on a little in age.(Green teeth!) I think they're happy enough...they get fed well and encouraged to jump around for their food as a sort of exercise as well as entertainment for us tourist types. One of them whom I couldn't get a photo of because he was too fast was described as particularly aggressive and therefore very dangerous. When he "jumped" for his morsel of meat, the sound of his jaws snapping was really alarming. It'll never be safe enough to get back into the water for me...

Darwin has a population somewhere around 100000 so I believe and the whole state has only about a quarter of a million people so there’s a lot of space here! The Northern Territory really doesn’t have much to offer as a desirable place to live. Oops...they won't be giving me a job in tourism then!!…It’s very hot most days both in the dry and wet seasons with the dry being just ever so slightly more comfortable. We’re actually here just at the end of the dry so it rained yesterday of course.
The city is much the same as those in Queensland with a few more degrees Celsius and gzillions more horrible little buzzy flies...I know I had been warned, but, still it's not a pleasant experience.

We are due to leave for Indonesia next Wednesday where I'm reliably told it'll be even hotter and more humid. Nice! As Indonesia is also predominantly Muslim, we ladies have been told that we have to cover up so as not to offend. This means wearing more clothes of course.Think I might only venture out afer dark.

The internet is supposed to be infrequent over there so the next entry may be some time in the posting. There are 17500 islands in Indonesia too so that's a lot of navigation required. This time however, we should be with the rally boats from the start as everything that is necessary is currently working properly....maybe I shouldn't have written that?