There are plenty of national parks in Australia, and the biggest of them all is the Kakadu, located on the northern side of the country, close to a city named after Charles Darwin (so... close to Darwin). Being in the Southern hemisphere, Darwin is closer to the equator, so it's never cold really. We arrived in Melbourne when it was beginning to get cooler, but in Darwin it is warm and humid. They have only 2 seasons: the wet and the dry. We arrived just at the end of the wet season, and if we have to do it again I would definitely not go there if it's not the dry season.
Darwin is the place to stay at if you want to visit the Kakadu. Other national parks are within driving distance from the city, like Litchfield. The city is really small, full of backpackers, and in the main street there are plenty of hostels and tours operators.
We had booked tours to Kakadu and Litchfield already in Belgium, following suggestion from a friend of Celine. The girl went to Kakadu with Kakadu Dreams, she enjoyed it. We wanted to do a full 3 days tour in Kakadu, but because it is still the wet season, lots of roads were closed, so the operator offered only 2 days tours, which is still good, considering we won't see many other national parks.
On Monday morning we had a meeting at 7.00 in front of the operator office. The guide, Barney, picked us up in his 4WD. We were in a group of 8 tourists, a small group, and we had to help each other doing lunch, etc, it was really a friendly spirit. We started the tour by going to the crocodile river, where we got to hold a python (photo time).
Actually in Darwin, even though it's never below 25°, you cannot swim in the sea. There are deadly jellyfish, big sharks, and seawater crocodiles (the salties)...
So the salties live in freshwater as well, like in that river, but they don't mind the salted water. The males can get quite big, we saw a 5m specimen, and they are unique because they jump out of the water to catch their prey (birds). On the river, a boat operator took us around and his employees were making the crocs jump with pieces of buffalo meat. We saw them jump a lot, they were massive!
After that we went to Kakadu for real. We saw lots of wildlife, goannas (a big lizard), wallaroos (like wallabies and kangaroos mixed together), big spiders, birds, frogs and toads... the day was hot, humid, we walked and climbed to go on top of lookouts, and in the end we fully appreciated the view. Barney kept going opposite signs and arrows to show us his little way around. He used to date an aboriginal girl so it's like she showed him secret places or something. There were lots of rock arts on our ways up, dating from several thousands years. By nightfall we went to a camping, enjoyed the swimming pool, and shared a bbq of kangaroo meat and buffalo sausages, and after that Barney tried to teach us his didgeridoos techniques. We slept in aerated tents, no insects could come in, and that's welcome because it was really crowded in the evening, all the insects woke up...
The next day we did another walk up the rocks, in the end it was really climbing rather than walking, but then the view was breathtaking. We went for a swim in a natural pool guaranteed crocs-free, it was great. Barney took us a bit further and there was another pool with a waterfall and the water was then even clearer, it was beautiful.
We returned back to Darwin, tired, but happy. This tour in a small group was great, the guide was nice and friendly, so I recommend it. In the evening we had a few drinks with Steffen, we met him on the tour, and an australian friend of his, called James.
After this 2 days tour we had a one day break before going to Litchfield on Thursday. On Wednesday we went to a wave pool, next to the sea, but with nothing deadly in the water, it was nice to dip in the water as it was really hot outside. In the evening we went for fish&chips with Steffen, and a finnish girl that was also on the Kakadu tour.
The next day we went for Litchfield, with the same tour operator, but not the same guide. This time it was a minibus coming for us, with 20 persons in it. Immediately it felt less friendly. The guide told everyone that the tour was quite easy, no climbing involved, everyone can wear flip flops if they want. We went to the same crocodile jumping thing, we did it 2 days earlier but we were only 3 persons to do the Litchfield after the Kakadu, so the others were happy to see it. This time it was a smaller boat so we could see the crocs better, it was nice. Then we were off to Litchfield, and after 1h30 of driving, we arrived at the park. We drove for another 15minutes and that's when we saw that the road was flooded. Impossible to cross, it was 60cm of water and rising. We had a lunch and had to turn back and go back to Darwin.
The operator refunded us 30$ per person (the tour costs 95$), saying that we went to the crocs and we had lunch (sandwiches) and that costs money.
We were really disappointed because basically, after Kakadu, we spent 2 days in Darwin doing nothing. Of course it's always nice to be in Australia but we could have 2 days more in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth, that would have been better than Darwin. And the tourist information center in Darwin knew that the road in Litchfield was flooded, the operator could have checked that.
Anyway, in the evening we were invited by James in his place for a dinner: curry barramundi (a local fish, really tasty). The guy is really friendly, he knew us from the evening 2 days before but he invited us to his place (he actually first invited Steffen). And he's really a good cook, he does the rice chinese style, and the curry was similar to mine (to my mom's).
So yeah, great evening with them, it was really sweet!
This was 3days ago, we are now in Western Australia where network coverage is pretty bad, we'll update the blog in a dozen of hours!
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