Australia

Australia part 1: (for part 2 and part 3 click on it)

The flight from Singapore was smooth, but arriving in Darwin at 4:30 in the morning is a bit early. We waited for the sun to rise and took the bus into town to find a cheapish hostel (money is flowing fast).
Darwin itself is a sort of modern (American) spread out town with a lot of sub-urbs, not very interesting itself. But it is close to Kakadu national park and a couple of other parks and places and has some fantastic beaches. Unfortunately it is the season of the killer jellyfish, so nobody is allowed in the water�and it is bloody hot and humid!

We found a hostel with swimming pool (essential when it is 35-40 degrees) and a room with a window of 20 by 20 centimeters� but it had airco. The next hours we spend hunting for the best tour to Kakadu and environment. Since it is the so called Build-up for the monsoon season (still OK weather, but the occasional thunderstorm and the heat) here it is not very busy, so we had lots of choices, too many. Finally we 'cut the knot' and chose the Wilderness 4wd tours 5 day tour including Litchfield park and Katherine gorge canoeing which was departing the next day. Our guide was a 'cool' Aussi guy, who was either very tired from the season or just tired of tourists in general. Despite of him the parks were beautiful with abundant wildlife ( especially the 3000 species of flies were studied in close detail). We spent most of the days getting bloody hot and searching for a cooldown in one of the many waterfalls or billabongs (those without the Saltwater crocs, they are quite hungry this time of the year...). Nights we spend around a campfire, while the temperature dropped to a cool 29 degrees, in the middle of the bush surrounded by wallabies and crocs.

Apart from nature there are also abundant aboriginal art sites in the park. The sites that you are allowed to visit are not the religious site (off limits for touris)but more the graffiti places. Aboriginals were the earliest graffitiy artists of all time! Some of the paintings are dated at 40,000 years old...

Back in Darwin we spent a couple of days around, using a rental car, and sleeping in our own tent (Yes really). This tent is not really designed for this climate resulting in sauna sessions at night....

Cairns: Well, we arrived in what is supposed to be THE centre of Queensland Australia and it looks as a bit of a nightmare. One big tourist place with shops and hostels and adventure information points all over the place. Full of stupid backpackers... Benidorm revisited. We should have known of course...
In Cairns there are about 350 places offering tours of all kind (rainforest, diving, deathjumps etc.) and they all offer the same things.
We didn't know how fast to get out of this place, but we found a nice place to stay just out of the centre called Ryans Rest, in an old wooden building with big veranda's. From there we arranged a diving tour for next week (18th to 24th) and we rented a cheap small car to explore the much talked about Cape Tribulation.
Cape Tribulation is the place where the famous captain Cook stranded his boat on the reef. When the tide was high they managed to pull a big sail under the boat to prevent the boat from sinking and they reached Cooktown (wasn't a town yet duh).
We actually did not reach cooktown because the cheap rental cars are not allowed there. We did reach the Cape though and spent 2 days camping (sauna) near the beaches cooking our meals on the beach (see recipes). The rainforests are meeting the reefs here so we did a lot of walks in the rain forests looking for wildlife. Didn't see much because most of the wildlife is nocturnal and hard to spot.
Because of the agressive nature in Australia (apart from the 9 most deadly snakes and lethal spiders, of which we haven't seen one yet, they also have plants that sting like the box jelly fish) you have to walk on trails made especially for the tourists. These are usually an exhausting 800 to 1500 meters long with nice steps and bridges and fenced lookouts. Not very adventurous, can be done in a wheelchair, but the view is good and it is very informative. Later in the south we plan to do more adventurous trekkings of a couple of days on the Hinchinbrook island and in Tasmania.
After the Cape we spent 2 days in the Atherton tablelands (ancient vulcanically formed landscape, now mostly farmland, looks like England) and one day south of Cairns in Bramston Beach where we spent the night in the bar with some crazy locals...

Back in Cairns we had a little rest and the next day checked in on the Aquarius 3 for a diving trip. See the pictures . The acquarius itself it a bit rusty motorcruiser, but fortunately for Anita's seasickness and unfortunately for the fish (no feeding) with stabilizers. 13 other divers joined us on the fantastic dives. The visibility sometimes exceeded 30 meters and the coral and fish were pristine. In 3 days we almost did not see any other boats (or land for that matter), but we did see a lot of sharks, mostly harmless white tips, a few black tips and whalers.

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