South oz and Northern Territory

Well we arrived in Melbourne for a few nights, stayed at a good hostel called greenhouse. A group of us from the hostel got together and went and watched the first ozzy rules game of the season, it was quite hard to follow the rules to begin with but we thought it was a good game. The hostel also arranged a bike ride around the canal, me and Paul decided to take the tandem bike Oh big mistake!! the chain fell off about 10 times then it snapped so only the person on the back of the bike was able to cycle, so i'm sure you guessed who that was, Paul he did a great job while i sat on the front seat steering the best i could with a few close calls.

We headed to Adelaide by over night bus. We stayed at the YHA which was a really nice hostel. we got the tram to Glenelg where the beach is, we took a picnic with us and sat by the beach. We managed to get a lift through the centre with Ronny from Holland. He had a very old 4x4 so we were hoping it would get us there. There was also Stefan from Germany who was traveling with us to. as we drove along the Stuart Highway there got less and less life and more red dust. The fist stop was Roxby Downs a small town in the middle of nowhere, it was also the start of mosquito bites. The drive to Coober Pedy was an experience it was on a dirt road through the middle of nowhere, extremely dusty and bumpy. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town, a very strange place with most places under the ground because the flies are so bad and it gets pretty hot. If you don't have a fly net on, you would have about four flies trying to get up each nostrel, at least 20 in your mouth and eye's also a swarm in you ears, i thought i was going to lose my patience. We stayed at the under ground camp site for the night, we were like cave people. The town had no colour at all, no trees, plants it was just dust and piles of dust from the mining. We saw the spaceship they used for the film Pitch Black and we went to the real crocodile hunters home (the film was based on him) he died not so long ago. His house was under ground and only women were allowed in, he collected bra's. He even had one of Tina Turners bra's but someone stole it.

We eventually made it to Uluru and what an amazing sight. We have sooooooo many photo's to bore you with when we get home. We were not mad enough to climb it, it was very hot and looks very dangerous. Walking around it was really good there is so much to see. We went there for the sunset and sunrise so we could see the colour change. Oh yeah and thank god for fly nets.

We walked around the Olges which took about 2 hours in very hot weather. They were quite interesting. It took us 4 hours to walk around Kings Canyon which was really nice. The views were amazing. Stefan stripped naked to have a picture which was very funny. We camped at the King's Canyon resort which was full of mosquito, they did not take long to find our blood. We were playing monopoly and a dingo came right up to us.

Before we arrived at Alice Springs we camped at a meteorite crater, it was quite interesting but i have never seen so many mosquito, they were biting us through our clothes. We all went to bed about 7:30pm just to get away from them. Rainbow Valley was really good the rocks are so many different colours.

We arrived in Alice Springs on the 10th April and checked into the Malanka backpackers. The town was an eye opener. There were lot's of Aboriginy people either fighting, drunk or passed out on the street, they don't put that in the brochures. The following day Johnathan from Barcelona drove a group of us to Mcdonnal ranges, It was really nice but the lake was very cold, it was great for the very bad hangover i had though. While we were in Alice we dicided to buy a Mitsubishi Pejero 4x4, so we could drive to everywhere we wanted to go. We wanted two people to travel with us so the petrol and food cost would be cheaper. We travelled up the centre with Stefan and Vara they are both from Germany so they had to put up with our towel and being first for everything jokes.

Our first stop was Devils marbels which was really interesting. The land went from flat to loads of round rocks scattered all over the place. The roads were just so boring just miles and miles and miles and miles of nothing. We stopped in Mataranka for the night and got completely surrounded by cane toads which got quite interesting when we saw one try and eat another one. We were sitting by our tents having a chat when this massive bright green cricket landed on my chest, i was very brave and did not freek out until it crawled up to my shoulder then walked down my arm and clung to my fingers. Paul and Stefan decided at 11:30pm to go on a night walk so i tagged along. We saw an owl, kangaroo's, fire flies and even a crab on the side of the road next to the hot springs. In the morning we walked to the river and went for a swim in the nice 35degree water. We arrived in Katherine and went to the Katherine gorge view point, it was quite a steep climb but well worth it when we made it. We arrived at the camp site in the dark and discovered it was right next to a river so there were millions of mosquito. Paul was spraying on some repellant and realised he was standing on a red ants nest so they bit all his feet. The grass had little flashing lights, when we had a closer look it was these spiders.

We spent 3 days in Kakadu national park which was plenty. All the waterfalls were closed due to the monsoon season, so we only got to see the Aboriginal art, which of course has a story to it:- Paul, Nouk and Vara were walking along infront of me when we heard a loud crack, a massive branch fell from a tree, I shouted run to the other three and they scattered as the branch hit the floor and hit Nouk in the face they were so lucky none of them were seriously hurt. (a lesson never trust an Australian tree!!). We stayed at a nice camp site the first night which had a lovely pool, we drank beer while chatting to some people in the pool. (do not do this at home very dangerous if you drink too much!!). The second night we stayed at a free camp site with a couple from Holland (It was in a croc area no wounder it was free). We had a bbq and spent the rest of the night putting on repellent to keep the mosquito away and the boy's made a camp fire. I was kept awake all night by the buzzing of mosquito all around our tent, when i finely fell asleep i got woken up at 4am by a pop noise, We had left a candle burning in one of the water containers, it had melted the plastic and set the ground alight, so i panicked being as there was loads of dry grass around woke Paul up but he was so confused with what was going on that i jumped out the tent in to all the mosquito's and put water on the ground to stop it, but some of the water went on to the wax and there was a big fire ball, i was lucky to have eyebrowes left. The flames finaly went out after my fire display and Paul and i spent the next 30mins killing all the mosquito that got in the tent. The following morning we just through everything back in to the car and drove to a car park where we had breakfast. We all were covered in bites, Stefan's feet were covered, Paul had them all around his ankles and I had them all across my back. We thankfully were leaving that morning. At least we had not been eaten by the monster sized crocodiles.

We arrived in Darwin on the 21st April. We stayed at the YHA which was ok. Darwin is a bit like a holiday resort. We spent a week relaxing after a hectic 2 weeks. Paul had his birthday while we were, there so it was a great excuse to eat and drink plenty. We went for a meal with 4 other people we had met. We went to the wharf and had a feast of - yes wait for it - Camel, crocodile, buffalo and burramundi fish and what a yummy meal it was, We then went and had a few drinks in Shinnanigans an Irish bar, well when i say a few maybe slightly more then that. We spent one night eating dinner on the beach watching the sunset (very romantic). Stefan got a lift to the east coast so we said goobye to him. Vara stayed with us. We travelled through Litchfield national park which was lovely, we went swimming in two lakes which were crocodile free.

We eventually travelled through the border to Western Australia on the 27th April.........................................................