darwin, australia (the journey)

travel mates:

• raymond, hoon, alex, joyce

date of travel:

• May 2006

duration:

• 7 days 6 nights

route:

• darwin city -> litchfield national park -> katherine gorge -> kakadu national park

accomodation (min 1*, max 5* based on my personal review):

• apollo campervan, 2* for failing to address our concern on the windscreen chip-off
• yha darwin, 3* value for money and good location

~ darwin city ~

• a peaceful small town with quite a number of shops run by asian. met a singaporean who owns a restaurant there, had a short conversation but left us with a "huge impression", right yeah? alex. we did not manage to spend much time in the city, was there only for the last night before we departs for singapore early the next morning. the mindil beach night market was wonderful and it is only opened on thursday and saturday for april to october only. you will be able to witness the spectacular copper-sunset at the beach while listening to some aboriginal music or shopping for some nice handicraft. i did not manage to capture the sunset since the tripod wasn't with me and till now, i still regret for not bringing it along to the market. by the way, i had the freshest seafood meal at the market and also tasted kangaroo "satay" for the first time. I am against any violence towards living creature so don't worry, the kangaroo meat actually came from car accident's casualties. we wouldn't want to pay someone to kill those lovely animal, peace!

~ litchfield national park~

• litchfield is famous for the nice waterfalls. there are plenty of it but make sure you don't go during or just after the wet season. what happen is wet season brings crocodiles into the upstream and it is not safe to swim. however, we managed to overcome the disappointment through one whole night of star gazing at the camp ground. we walked to the top of wangi fall the next morning and the view was lovely. it was a short 30mins walk.

~ katherine gorge ~

• there are a total of 5 gorges at katherine gorge, or was it 6? anyway, for 2 hours walk (one way) we only managed to make it to the 2nd gorge. if you want to go further, you will have to hike overnight. there is boat or helicopter tour if you wish to splurge on it, but as we are on a tight budget, our poor legs just have to do all the work. well, the end point is the same but the sense of satisfaction is enormous. there are some nice swim hole and waterfall around and since it is cascaded before flowing down to the gorge/river, it means there is unlikely to be a crocodile and yes! you can swim there.

~ kakadu national park ~

• kakadu national park is listed as one of the world heritage site and it is really huge. there are many interesting sites to be visited there, e.g. wetlands, waterfall, rivers, rock art site but we only made it to ubirr and the small jabiru town since time was running short and furthermore, most of the roads were not accessible due to flood. ubirr is a rock art site and the path leading from the parking area to the actual site itself is an interesting walk. jabiru is just like any other small towns in northern territory, with the exception of a huge "crocodile" hotel, holiday inn jabiru.