This is Croc country!

On Friday I flew from Cairns to Darwin which is in the Northern Territory. It's the coldest month in OZ right now and it never went below 30 degrees in Darwin. Most days it was about 35. I can't imagine how people live here in the Summer months.

I was happy to meet up with Nerys, Brady and Mark again. Here they are dong what they do best (they are Irish after all:p)

Mark being silly at the Hostel (which was crap btw. Don't stay at the Youth Shack if you ever go to Darwin. The rooms are tiny, you have to pay for everything, including dishes and pots/pans which run out when the hostel is busy so you have to wait to cook your dinner, the sponge that we had to use to clean the dishes with left them more dirty then before you cleaned them and to top it all off it cost $30/night!) We would have stayed somewhere else but little did we know that The Darwin Cup was on the weekend we got there so everywhere was full and since we are so obviously responsible we hadn't booked anywhere in advance.

A sign in the hostel which read "Please do not leave any smelly footwear in hallway. If especially bad, leave on sundeck" in a million different languages. Is this seriously that much of a problem? And if so...why? My favourite is the second to last one which has the word "Stink" in brackets. Apparently there is no word for smelly in whatever language that one is in!?

Just some locals we ran into on the way home one night...

Nerys arrived a day after Brady, Mark and I so Brady and I spent a night watching "The Class" and "Star Treck" at the outdoor deck chair cinema. So awesome! Normally I would not be inclined to watch Star Treck the movie but we just couldn't bring ourselves to move after the first film had finished...

These guys we made out of old soda cans...

Darwin itself is not that exciting (pretty much like any other tourist town), so we decided to hire a car and go to Litchfield National park and see some sights along the way. We quickly got used to seeing signs like this...

Berry Springs was our first stop, thankfully suggested by Nery. It was such a nice place to cool off and go for a swim...and possibly get eaten by a crocodile.

Here we are in our lovely attire after cooling off.

That was pretty much all we did the first day. We stayed overnight at the Banyan Tree Caravan Park and the cottage we got was sweet as.

It had 4 beds and was totally self contained with a bathroom and kitchenette. We made hamburgers and had some drinks and then passed out after a long day of driving and swimming in the heat.

The next day we slept in an woke up 4 minutes before we were supposed to check out but the guy at reception still made us free breakfast which consisted of toasted sandwiches and unlimited cups of tea or coffee. Then we stopped first at Buley swimming hole which was another lovely place to chill out for an hour or two. The sign in the carpark read...

Makes sense! Here we are enjoying the water...

Then we went to see the Magnetic Termite Mounds which was really cool (although somewhat uncomfortable because it was scorching hot and the flies were under full attack...and they bit too!)

The termites build these mounds, which obviously take many years, to adjust their homes to the climate and weather changes in the North which are quite extreme between the Summer and Winter. They were huge. Now that's co-operation!

They were everywhere...

We saw quite a few beautiful waterfalls that day.

I absolutely loved each and every one of them.

Definitely one of those moments where you think to yourself: This is why I am travelling.

and of course more Croc warnings...

The last falls called Wangi Falls was by far my favourite.

and we got to swim in it.

It's really hard to capture how beautiful it was on camera but hopefully you get the idea...

There were also hundreds of Flying Foxes (Bats!) hanging from trees around the falls. They were huge and made terrible squeaking noises and their wings flapped in the wind...

They all take off flying at dusk but we weren't there to witness that.

Really?

So....what now? Well remember when I said that I had a plan and it would probably change? Well it certainly did. Previously we had planned to rent a camper van and travel down the West Coast but unfortunately Brady and Nery were running out of money and needed to get back to Melbourne to find work so instead of travelling on my own down the coast and spending god knows how much money, I contacted Greg, the owner of Travellers Hideaway where I stayed on Magnetic Island and he said I could come and work for accommodation. So I am back on the Island and my life consists of waking up at about 9:45am (people check out at 10am and I think out of all the people who have done this job, I sleep in the longest), eating breakfast, cleaning for between 1 and 2 hours depending on how many people checked out, suntanning, reading, taking naps and then hanging out with Greg and other backpackers at night. I have Parrots and Possums and Wallaby's eating out of my lap every day. Greg let's me use his Internet and do my washing in his house (I think he wants me to move in to be honest). The closest food shop is a 30 minute walk or a 10 minute bike ride. The bus only runs once and hour. The beach and a pub is about a 2 minute walk away and it's sunny 320 days/year. The temperature is about 28 in the day and 20 at night. It's a pretty sweet life! I reckon I will stay here for 2 months and then fly back to Melbourne for a week or so to say goodbye to the friends I made there and then head to New Zealand.

If anyone feels the urge to write me a letter or send me some money;) the address is:
32 Picnic Street, Picnic Bay
Magnetic Island, Queensland 4819
Australia

Pictures of where I live can be found here: http://www.travellersbackpackers.com/site/photos/

Miss you all terribly. Exes and Ohs times a trillion.