Kakadu and Humpty Doo

Friday 4th 4pm
First the weather. It remains hot although its cooled down to about 30C now we are in Darwin. But its very very wet too - last night it tipped it down for about 4 hours so the camp ground was under a couple of inches of water this morning. Fortunately we were camping on a raised platform so we escaped. Still its perfeectly possible to deal with the hot and humid conditions - just accept the fact that you are as wet as possible and smell and its ok.

Which is more than can be said for the insects. THEY DRIVE YOU MAD. I took to long sleeve tops. Fortunately I have had no allergic reactions besides a few itchy bites which you can treat with cream. But I can now count between 50 and 100 bites alone on each arm and also 18 on my left hand! And that not to count the bloody flies which don't bite but do swarm around your head. It would send me troppo if I lived here.

Since the last blog we have spent 3 days in Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. As its the wet season some attractions are under water whereas others are better in the rain i.e. all of the majestic falls.

Tuesday we took a boat trip up the Katherine Gorge. Its a very long gorge through the Nitmuluk aborigial lands. Our tour was supposed to go up 3 gorges but the swollen water meant we couldn't get past the 2nd. Water has risen by 2m or so and normally rises by 8m - which changes the scenery somewhat. Heres a little information

http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/parks/find/nitmiluk.html

Wednesday. We had camped at Cooinda and after another nights rain we went on a yellow river cruise. Once again the floods had arrived the day before so it was now 1-2m deeper than onyl 1 day earlier. We were supposed to cruise down jimjim river to the South Alligator river to look for crocs and the like. However we ended up cruising the wetlands as it had become a flooded lake. Not too many crocs were evident as they had chance to spread their net over a wider area but very impressive still.

http://www.gagudjulodgecooinda.com.au/

After lunch we went for a walk up to Nourlangie rocks . This is an escarpemtn which had impressive views over the whole floodplain. The most impressive thing was the feeling of walking through a swimming pool - as I was drier after I had a shower on my back to the camp. Here is a link to thei site. We walked to the Nawurlandja (Now-oo-larn-ja) lookout

http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/kakadu/activities/nour.html

Thursday we set off for Litchfiled National park which was 300kms from Norlangie - on the way we stopped for a drink and to do food shopping at a place called HUMPTY DOO . I kid you not. What a name - my best of the tour so far. Bit of a crap place really for such a good name!

We stayed at Batchelor and visted a number of waterfalls and had quite a few walks through rain forest. It was on this day that I realised I could cope with the humidity and not the insects - as we didn't have insects on the walks and it was ok - except for the bo! Its difficult to describe the falls expcept to say that this is Crocodile Dundee country and they were worthy of a filmset. Hopefully over the next few days I'll get some on the blog.

And today we are in Darwin. Its rainy and the wind is getting up. And guess why. Darwin is hot and humid in the wet season - which I've already told you about. Its also cyclonic. In 1974 Hurricane Tracy blew through here and destroyed 90% of the houses and killed 70 people. The headline in todays paper is ' Darwin prepares for cyclone' No idea yet if its going to hit. However, the internet cafe I am in is shutting at 4pm - 20 minutes - to prepare for the cyclone. Tourist Info has already shut. No danger to me as the buildings are substantial and there is no guarantees that it will form and blow our way - nut it does add to the experience doesn't it?

Here is the link to the news story. You can follow it with this paper

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2008/01/04/3012_ntnews.html

Will blog you later once I've got some more stories on wind rain and cyclones.