Crocs, waterholes and Mad Matt

Arriving to (very) hot Darwin was a lovely change after the quite chilling days I had spent in Alice Springs and Ayers Rock.

Darwin is very nice, small and laidback tropical city, and the Northernmost place I'll be in Australia (only a few kilometers away from East Timor), and I liked it much more than I expected. It has quite a few nice sand beaches where the water is meters and meters away at low tide, and that's probably good, since that's where the dangerous salt water crocodiles are almost all year long and the box jelly fish, the most venemous animal in the world, swims from October to around May. So a general rule in Darwin and surroundings is stay out of the water unless you are completely certain that is safe or it's a private swiming pool.

One of my favorite places in Darwin was the sunday Mindil Beach Market that, even though has become quite touristry, is still worth visiting. Besides the typical Asian and Australian souvenirs you find in this sort of markets, Mindil has a great selection of cheap Asian food from different countries and some of the best live performances I've ever seen, including local groups Jabaru (soft music) and Em Dee (didgeridoo dance music), which I absolutely loved and had to buy their CDs (which were not cheap). And if that wasn't enough, you can also see on of the best diabolo acrobats I've seen in my life (although his practicing was far more impressive than the night show he did).

But the main reason most people (including myself) go to Darwin is to visit the spectacular Kakadu National Park. Since in this park you need a 4x4 to access most of the best sites and it's absolutelly huge (20,000 square km!), I decided to book a 5-day tour that also visited the other highlights of the area: Litchfield National Park and Katherine Gorge. And so far, I think it was the best guided tour I've done in my life and certainly one of the highlights of my visit to Australia.

We had a great guide, Matt, a perfect mix of experience, organization and CRAZINESS!! And an absolutely great group, including Ineke and Gerard (a cute and really funny young Dutch couple), Martina (my silently cute German platonic love :), Dean and Allison (a hilarious Melbourne couple) and Pete and Bridget (who patiently stood, and sometimes participated in, some of our crazy activities).

Our first day we visited Litchfield National Park, stopping on the way to watch Matt feed huge barramundi (around 1-m long fish) with his mouth. An apperitive for what it was to come.

Litchfield was beautiful, full of nice water-holes where you could swim and jump. One of my favorites was Tolmer Falls, where only the company we went for is allowed to take people swiming. And so we did, including swiming into a dark cave that was quite an experience. Buley Rock-hole was another great place, with naturally-formed jacuzzi-size water-holes were you could swim or relaxed. We ended the day seeing hundreds of spectacular termite mounds, some of them over 5 m. high.

But probably the highlight of the day was the end of it, where we camped under the starry sky with just our swags (a water-proved thing that you put your sleeping-bag into) and no tents in McDonnell airstrip, an abandoned runway from World War 2. No cars, no noises, nobody. Just us and a bunch of wild animals around us that, fortunately, we didn't see. Matt said in many occasions he had taken snakes out of people's swags; as they sleep there because they're warmer (I imagine the face of that person when he wakes up in the morning and finds his/her new little companion).

The next day we paddled for a few hours in canoes along the first two spectacular gorges of the Katherine river. There were fresh water crocodiles, which are very shy and not dangerous unless you provoke them, but that made Ineke quite nervous.

The third day we finally enter Kakadu, and spent the next three days visiting spectacular waterfalls, swiming in beautiful water-holes, seeing old Aboriginal paintings, spotting salt water crododiles and other fauna, camping in the open, sleeping under the stars, cooking with real fire (Matt proved to be one of the best firewood chefs I've seen in my life) and having a lot of fun. And despite how popular this park is, most of the time we were just by ourselves, which was a truly unique experience and the only time I've really felt in the wild in Australia.

Even though certain places where we swam were though to be completely safe to swim, I must confess it was a bit scary going into the water in a park that you know is full of the dangerous salt water-crocodiles (and with warning signs everywhere). Specially knowing that a German girl was killed by one of this crocodiles two years ago because she went swimming in an unsafe are. But rangers remove the crocs from these places and guides know where and where not to swim.

I don't want to bore you with the details, but I'll just mention some of my favorite annecdotes of the trip to give you an idea of what was like.

In Katherine Gorge Martina and I went down the rapids in our canoe, even though Matt told us we were not supposed to. Later he would confess that he just says that in front of the rangers, but he's the first one to do it when he's paddling. Then, our first night in Kakadu, we went swiming at night in a water-hole, after looking around (and into the clear waters) with our torches to make sure that Matt's comment that there can't be crocs in that area was true. Matt even climbed some slippery rocks and dived into the waterhole. At night!

Another fun night was when it rained in our camping and we had to sleep in the toilets, after watching Matt play golf with cane todds, which is the only way to kill them (cane todds were introduced from South America and are now a plague, killing all local animals). And certainly one of the highlighs of the trip was Barramundi gorge, where there are some spectacular natural pools ontop of a waterfall and some incredible jumps into them. Only Gerard and I decided to jump from a 16m high rock (I can't tell you how small the water-hole looks from up there), but Matt, with an injured foot and only 8 toes (he lost 2 in a bicycle accident) jumped from another one at least 8 m higher. Mad Matt!!

We finished our trip spotting more salt water crocodiles in a river, starting a water fight inside the car that Matt had just cleaned and playing games drawing on Gerard's leg. A truly unforgettable trip.

The night we arrived we all went out (including Matt) and had a lot of fun hoping from bar to bar and discovering Martina's spectacular dancing skills.

My last day in Darwin were quite relaxed, and included a tour to the jumping crocodiles (they hang a piece of meat from a boat and the crocs jump out of the river to get it).

I really have great memories from Darwin and I think, so far, is my favorite place in Australia.

Australia's red red center

Arriving in Australia, and specificaly Sydney, has been a great change from my previous traveling. Although I only stayed in the city for 3 days (will be spending more time in the future), I did got a good feeling for it and I really loved it: nice architecture, spectacular setting, quite sophisticated people, lots of Asian food, good public transportation, really nice beaches, great weather and lots of opportunities to buy the latest of the kind of crap I like (electronics, sports,...) It's an unusual blend of America and Europe that makes it very attractive.

My favorite site was Manly Beach, a nice suburb about 30 minutes on the ferry from downtown Sydney. It has great beaches within walking distance (where you can surf, kite-surf and even dive) and for all preferences, from the small and quiet Shell Beach to the long social Manly Beach, with its nice promenade behind. But one of the highlights of Manly is actually getting there, enjoying a spectacular view of Sydney, with the unique Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. And if that wasn't enough, we got to see the sunset on this setting when coming back to Sydney on the ferry.

However, despite all the attractions this city has to offer, I decided to head north as soon as possible, since it's still winter down here and its the best time to visit the (supposedly) hot central desert and the tropical north. So, I took a 3 and a half hour flight crossing a lot of nothing to arrive at one of Australias' most photographed icons: Ayers Rock or Uluru, in Aboriginal language.

The first surprise was that there is absolutely nothing in Ayers Rock except the Yulara resort, that includes all possible accomodation and a small mall with restaurants, shops and the only unexpensive thing there: the supermarket. No village, no houses, no streets, nothing. I don't know where the people that work there live (and unfortunately, I forgot to ask).

Even though I'm sure most travel wankers get hypnotized by their first view of the famous red rock, I must confess I didn't. In fact, the pictures you see of it are often better than the real thing, as they're taken with the ideal lighting conditions, and I didn't get that on my first day. So, sorry, no big "oooooooh" for me this time.

And of course, despite the fact that I was in the desert and that it's the dry season, it rained. I truly think I should visit all the countries with water problems in Africa, because I could solve that just stepping out of the plane. But this time the rain brought with it a wonderful present: a beautiful rainbow while I saw the sunset on the rock from the distance and lots of truly rare flowers all over the desert (one guide told us she had been living there for 5 years and had never seen any flower).

I did the usual staff: see the sunrise (in a freezing morning), walk around the rock (where I could appreciate all the unusual caves and shapes of the rock, which were truly amazing and a real surprise) and see the sunset, when the rock becomes very red (as in all the pictures you have seen). I didn't get to climb it because the shut it down due to the wind (and after my guidebook, a Qantas video, all brochures and dozens of signs around the rock ask you not to climb it because the religious importance it has for local people, you don't feel very incentivated anyway).

But my favorite spot in the area was the Olgas, a collection of red dome-shaped mountains, forming spectacular canyons and providing incredible views. And in addition, I got to enjoy them with a great group of Aussies, British and Irish.

I decided to take a tour to Alice Springs, so I could stop at Kings Canyon. And I don't think I need to tell you what color it is. It was an interesting bus ride, where we saw kangaroos and wild horses and camels. Yeap, there are camels down here and not only they've gone wild but Australians have created a very profitable industry by catching them and selling them back to the Arabs)

Despite the age of my fellow travelers (I think the youngest person except me, the driver and a pair of Italian honeymooners was alive in WW 2), most people walked up the canyon to enjoy some nice views of it's vertical walls and dome-shaped hills.

And finally, Alice Springs. I was really curious to discover what the city was like, and it was a much nicer place than I expected, clean, with nice buildings and parks, but unfortunately as dull as I expected. Yeap, not much to do or see here, except exploring the West McDonnell Range (not to be confused with the fast-food chain) which a did sharing a rental car with Sara, the British girl from the Olgas tour. We visited some really nice and quiet water-holes, gaps and canyons, saw some wallabies (small kangaroos that live in the rockes) and had a great time driving around, trying to understand some unintelligible explanations regarding the formation of the rang and being able to talk while listening to the hottest bands of the moment (according to Sara) at no less than 500 decibels (yeap, again Sara). We completed the beautiful day by visiting one of the most bizarre Irish Pubs I've seen in my life (with drunk Aboriginals singing karaoke), in the company of our Irish and Welch roommates who drunk beer by hectoliters.

One truly shocking thing about Alice Springs is actually the sight of all the Aboriginal people drunk in the streets. I've heard all kinds of explanations for that, but none of them seems truly convincing. But whether it's racism from the white community or lack of interest in society from the Aboriginal, something is terribly wrong when you see this people completely drunk and not working in shops or restaurants.

Of course, I couldn't live the area where 9 of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world live without visting the reptile center to play with a few lizards, have a 3-meter long snake around me or witnessing 2 Inland Taipan, the most venomous snake in the world (one drop of its venom can kill up to 12 people), eat their lunch only 2 meters away from us and with no barriers in between. This is the wild Australia!