In photos: Kings Canyon, Australia

For today’s photo theme post I’m sharing with you the quite marvellous Kings Canyon in Australia’s Northern Territory.

There is a big rock not too far from here that gets a lot of attention (and deservedly so!), but if you have some time in your trip, then I cannot recommend a visit to Kings Canyon enough.

The main highlight are the incredibly weird “beehive domes”, also referred to as the “Lost City”, which are pictured above. These are the remains of incredibly ancient (up to a billion years!) sand dunes, which were compacted into sandstone and then revealed by weathering.

The best way to explore this area is on foot, via the 6km Canyon Rim walk. This takes you right up and around the canyon, offering spectacular views and seriously dizzying drops, some as high as 270m. The walk isn’t too strenuous, although there is a steep section at the start. Now, on to some more photos!

Hard to believe that this was all sand once.

Looking down the canyon itself from the rim

The canyon walls are sheer, and fences do not feature highly. These cliff walls are not stable!

Incredible fossilsed sand dunes

You can still see the ripples in the sand, frozen in time

The colours are simply incredible

The rock formations are just unbelievable.

The walk is like something out of a science fiction movie.

The outback scenery here is just stunning

How do these trees survive?

And that was Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory. As well as the rim walk, you can also walk inside the canyon itself, which is a much easier walk, although doesn’t have quite the spectacular views.

I hope you enjoyed today’s pictures. As always I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on today’s post in the comments below!

Highlights of Kakadu

If there is one place you must visit when in Australia’s Northern Territory, it is the Kakadu National Park.

Here you will find stunning outback scenery, gigantic waterfalls, 5,000 year old aboriginal rock art and all manner of wildlife, in a park spanning an area the size of Slovenia.

Given that Kakadu is so big, and not everyone has huge amounts of time on their hands, here I have highlighted some of my favourite parts of this incredible, world heritage listed, park.

Jim Jim Falls

Waterfalls are a popular attraction and I freely admit that I am a huge waterfall fan. The thing that differentiates Jim Jim from most of the falls I have visited however is the lack of water. Unless you have a helicopter, it is only possible to visit the falls during the dry season - at which time there isn’t any water going over it. Which is a bit of shame, because this 200 metre high waterfall is presumed to be seriously impressive when in full flow.

Still, visiting it in the dry season isn’t a waste of time. Massive walls rise up all around you, topping out at over 200 metres in sheer height, over which you can imagine water cascading in volume. The pool at the bottom is safe for swimming in, if a little chilly, which given the temperatures in this part of the world, is no terrible thing.

Once you’re at Jim Jim falls, you are only a few kilometres away from the Twin Falls, over which water cascades all year round. Getting to the Twin Falls involves a short boat ride up a potentially croc infested river, which costs a bit of money, followed by a short scramble up the rocky path. Swimming isn’t allowed at these falls, but the views make up for that.

Both of these falls require a four wheel drive to visit – there is deep sand to drive over as well as rivers to cross. Unless you have your own vehicle, a tour is probably the easiest way to do this – many hire companies specifically prohibit you from driving down the Jim Jim falls road in their vehicles – even the 4x4 ones.

Ubirr

Ubirr is one of Australia’s best and most accessible aboriginal rock art sites. Here the rock art, some of it thought to be over 5,000 years old, depicts all sorts of things, from the Rainbow Serpent (creator of the landscape), to lists of local delicacies. Much rock art was, after all, essentially a run down of the local food items you could expect to find, from fish to roos.

As well as the rock art, there is a magnificent rock outcrop that you can climb atop, from where a flood plain of African proportions comes into view. Birds, water buffalo and huge saltwater crocs will vie for your attention, as will swarms of mozzies. Bring lots of repellent – they’re ferocious little blighters.

A popular activity at Ubirr is watching the sun set or rise, and the moon set or rise. If you time it right, and arrive around the time of the full moon, you will be greeted by the sight of a swollen reddish purple moon arising from the ground just as the sun heads earthwards. Moving stuff.

Gunlom

Gunlom is another magical waterfall that still manages to pull off spectacular even in the dry, when there is hardly any water going over it. The billabong at the base is safe for swimming in, but the real highlight is taking the kilometre long track up to the top, from where you can stand on the edge and enjoy the amazing view across the southern half of the park.

You can also, rather splendidly, swim in the pools at the top, and given that the temperatures in this part of the world are rarely anything below 30 degrees C, this option is pretty much a must after the hike up.

Finally, as a quick film fact, key scenes from Crocodile Dundee were filmed here, and in fact, much of the rest of the park was the backdrop for this quintessentially Australian movie.

Maguk

Maguk was one of the highlights of my entire Australia trip, which is saying something. Found in the southern part of Kakadu, at the end of a 4WD only road, Maguk (also known as Barramundi Gorge), is a waterfall that flows year round. The special part of it, however, is the incredible swimming it offers.

There are two options for swimming at Maguk. The first is the big pool at the base of the waterfall. Whilst this is deemed crocodile safe, and many people do swim in it, I wasn’t entirely convinced.

The other, far more appealing option, is at the top of the waterfall, reached via a not entirely clearly marked track. Here there are a stunning series of mini waterfalls, underwater tunnels and deep pools to wallow and bathe in. I managed to spend three whole days doing very little here, observing tour groups come and go, lying in the sun, and generally enjoying life. If you only visit one rock hole in your entire Australia trip – this should be it.

Warradjan cultural centre

Ah, culture. That important stuff we feel we are supposed to somehow inhale as part of our travels, without which we are perhaps missing out on something vital. I’m generally not a big fan of culture for cultures sake, but there is something about a 40,000 year old civilisation that does require at least a modicum of respect.

The Warradjan cultural centre is, therefore, on my list of places to visit in Kakadu. It has all sorts of fascinating knowledge on the history of the local people, including rock art, and examples of tools and so on.

If you’re passing through the area, and given that there is only one road going round Kakadu, this is largely inevitable, do drop in. You won’t regret visiting this particular cultural experience.

Hints for your visit

• Kakadu is a big old place. If you are self driving, which would be my recommended option for visiting, allow at least a week.
• You should visit in the Dry season (April – October usually). Whilst the waterfalls are certainly going to be more spectacular in the Wet, nearly all the roads will be closed due to water levels, so you’ll need a helicopter to get around.
• If you hire an offroad capable vehicle, check the small print allows you to actually go offroad – and particularly through water – as some of the attractions do involve river crossings
• If you don’t have any offroad driving experience, you may want to check out my offroad driving tips article.
• If the thought of steering yourself through crocodile filled rivers and traversing deep sandy tracks in a hire car fills you with terror, there are a multitude of operators who will take you on a guided tour. Pick one that lasts for a good few days though, as otherwise you’ll spend all your time getting acquainted with your bus seat.
• Unless a water hole is specifically deemed to be safe to swim in, or it’s handily at the top of a water fall, don’t swim in it. Despite being up to five metres long, saltwater crocodiles are incredibly good at hiding themselves, and you’ll only know they are there when it is too late. Don’t camp near unsafe water either. Seriously – these things are deadly and people do get killed.

There are multiple other activities and sights in Kakadu – you could easily spend upwards of a month exploring this immense park. From boat rides on the yellow water billabong to outback bush walking around Nourlangie, to just lazing in endless rock pools, you really won’t run out of things to do!

Memories of Oz: The red centre

A drive across Australia’s red centre is an absolutely classic road trip. Spanning around 3000km along the Stuart Highway, from Adelaide to Darwin, it is a trip where driving times are measured in days rather than hours.

If you’ve got some time to spare, and really want to get to grips with a feel for quite how vast and wild this country really is, then a trip through the red centre is something you really can’t miss out on.

Here are some of my highlights from the drive, ordered from Adelaide to Darwin.

Coober Pedy and surrounds

Coober Pedy is a very odd little town, reminding me somewhat of Tattooine, only without the scum and villainy. Located in South Australia, the town’s residents have chosen to live their lives largely underground, so as to avoid the extremes of temperature that the arid surrounds provide. As the main focus of the town is opal mining, there are no shortages of holes in which to build houses. You can find pubs, churches and even campgrounds underground. The town is well worth an explore just for this weirdness, plus if you are into your science fiction films, many of the props from the cult classic Pitch Black can be found here, including most of a a spaceship. Which seems strangely appropriate.

As well as the town itself, the surroundings are pretty stunning. A short drive from town is the Moon Plain, which resembles, you’ve guessed it, the surface of the moon. Plant life is not a feature of this rocky landscape. A little further again, and you come to the incredibly surreal painted desert, a series of hills displaying colours that wouldn’t be out of place in the Wizard of Oz.

The Devil’s Marbles

A short hop across the Northern Territory border, and you come to a large selection of giant boulders, which seem a little out of place given the rest of the landscape. No doubt this gave rise to the name, as they do seem to have other worldly origin. There is a small basic campground / car park here, and it’s worth staying the night as the light across the boulders at sunset and sunrise really has to be seen to be believed.

Uluru

It wouldn’t be a trip through the centre of Australia without a trip to this most famous of rocks. Some would scratch their heads in wonder as to the sanity of doing a 3000km road trip to stare at a giant bit of rock (you can fly here too), but the allure still seems a powerful draw. It is certainly a very strange experience, after driving for days and barely seeing another person, you suddenly find yourself at one of Australia’s most touristy spots.

It’s essential to watch the sunset over the rock and be amazed at the way the rock seems to actually change colour – just don’t expect to be alone when you’re doing so. Other activities include climbing up the rock, which the aboriginal owners would prefer you didn’t do, and walking around the rock, which is a less strenuous and more culturally acceptable activity. I personally did climb it, and the view from the top was spectacular.

While you are in the Uluru area, and have paid your entry fee, you should also take the time to visit the Olgas, another massive rock formation a very short drive away from Uluru. This is a far less busy alternative to the main attraction and may let you get your “rock vibe” on in peace.

Kings Canyon

When you meet people on the road, travelling to and from Uluru, the chance are that if they have been to the Kings Canyon, they will urge you to go there also. After you have been, you will find yourself urging other people to do the same.

This is because it is a quite awesome spot. Giant walls rise up from a river bed, at least a hundred metres high, atop which sit the beehive formations for which this area is famous. Actual bees did not create these weird domes, which is a good thing because these would be some seriously large insects. Instead, they are sandstone, the remains of an ancient desert which has been frozen into what remains today, with erosion doing the rest. These fossilised dunes are quite remarkable to walk around, with the sand ripple patterns still clearly visible all this time on. Worth the detour.

Daly Waters Pub

It wouldn’t be a trip through the centre of Australia without mention of at least one pub, and the one at Daly Waters is certainly worth the visit. Pubs, known as roadhouses in this part of the road, are often the only points of civilisation on these long stretches of highway, and offer hearty plates of food, accommodation and fuel, not to mention a wide variety of interesting characters to chat to.

The pub at Daly Waters holds fast to this tradition, with plentiful beer, shady camping, and a boast that they have the most remote traffic light in the world. A pub has been here in some form or another for a very long time, so long in fact that some weird traditions have sprung up around it.

It used to be, for example, that drovers coming through with their cattle on their way to market would stop off for a beer, and so as to be certain that they would have sufficient funds on the route back, would pin a note to the bar wall. This has now expanded somewhat, to the point that nearly anything you can think of is pinned to the walls of the pub, from driving licenses to underwear, from flags to ironmongery. It could be seen as kitsch, but there is just so much of it that it makes for a rather delightful drinking environment. That, and the evening entertainment often consists of a gentleman singing with a bald eagle chick on his head. This is, after all, the outback. I would have some photos of this, but I was too busy focusing on the beer and the strange eagle sight…

Mataranka

The tiny town of Mataranka would go by largely unnoticed, were it not for the spectacular thermal springs that feed a number of the rivers in this area. This results in a delightful bathing experience that is not to be missed, particularly after many hot hours on the road. My favourite of the bathing options was the bitter springs, a limestone thermal spring which bubbles along at a pleasantly warm temperature, and is a startlingly blue colour. This is an actual river, so you can float along with the current, sharing the space with terrapins and fish, before hopping out at the end of the 400 metre allocated swimming area, walking back, and doing it all again.

Tips for the road trip

This is a very long drive through remote country. Here are some things to be aware of:

• Road trains: Road trains are enormous trucks, up to three trailers and 57 metres in length. They barrel along at some speed, and you need to be aware that they have very long stopping distances. Overtaking them is possible, but you may need over a kilometre of highway to do so.
• Fauna: Outback animals, including stray cattle, roos and camels are liable to wander into the road, particularly in the evening and night time when car lights will confuse them. Unless you are in a tank, it is unlikely that your vehicle or the animal will come off well from a collision, so where possible, minimise your night time driving.
• Distance: The distance, as I’ve mentioned, is long. Don’t expect radio stations to work all the way, so take plenty of music along with you to keep you entertained. Car games will only keep you amused for so long.
• Breakdowns: If you are unlucky enough to break down, stay with your vehicle. You should carry enough food and water to last for a few days. That said, this is a fairly well travelled route, so you shouldn’t have too much difficulty flagging someone down and getting help.

Those were some of my favourite stopping points on the Adelaide to Darwin road. Out of necessity I’ve had to leave some of the places off, including the stunning Katherine Gorge, Edith Falls and the outback offroad adventure that is the Oodnadatta track. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly endless nothing, there is lots to see and do along this route, so be prepared to take your time and pencil in a few more sights than just “the rock”. Have a safe trip!

If you liked this post, you might like some of the others in the Memories of Oz series, including Memories of Oz: Fraser Island, Memories of Oz: Tasmania and Memories of Oz: The NT. For more photos from my travels, head on over to the site’s Facebook Page.

Offroad in Oz: The Lost Cities of Limmen

To continue the theme started earlier in the week with my piece on Gregory National Park, here are some thoughts on another less well known and somewhat out of the way park in the Northern Territory – Limmen National Park.

Limmen in point of fact, is not yet an official park. It is managed by the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory, and has it’s own ranger station, as well as a number of basic campgrounds, but as of writing its current status is that of a “proposed” park.

It is certainly isolated, covering just over 12,000 square kilometres of land in a spot between Katherine (305km to the north-west) and Borroloola (76km to the south east).

So what is the point of going to this patch of wilderness in the middle of nowhere? Well, Limmen is probably best known, if that term can be applied, for a number of spectacular sandstone formations, known, rather romantically, as the Lost Cities.

Clearly, anywhere sounding like it might be right out of an Indiana Jones movie is worth an investigation. Once again, we were not running against any schedule, so decided to take our time to get through Limmen, and ended up spending seven nights traversing the park, starting from the fishing mad Borroloola end.

The first highlight of the trip through the park wasn’t actually in the park at all, although it did require using the park roads. The Lorella Springs Wilderness Park is a privately owned million acre wilderness sanctuary, which offers bush camping in a seriously remote spot. It also happens to have a rather pleasant hot springs fed river running  through the middle of the campground, wherein you can lie in and let the fish nibble at your toes. Plus there is a bar serving cold stubbies, and even a happy hour, signalled by a bell. Almost perfect luxury, given our usual camping conditions at this point. Walking trails are signposted, and the owners are incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about the surrounding area. Worth a visit, if you happen to be passing through.

After Lorella Springs we visited the first of the two lost cities on our route - the Southern Lost City. This is relatively easy to get to from the main park road, plus it has a fairly new (if basic) campground right next to it. There are marked walking trails, allowing you to explore the quite eerie sandstone pillars that form the Lost City.

We took a walk at sunset up onto the ridge adjoining the campsite, which afforded an excellent view of the surroundings, then, as the sun set set and darkness fell, we retired to our camp area to enjoy the beauty of the night sky in the outback.

The next highlight of Limmen was the Butterfly Springs campground, another wonderful bush campsite set next to a large pool and slowly trickling waterfall. I suspect this would be more impressive during the wet. We camped by the pool and spent a while swimming in it, sharing it with an active Mertens’ water monitor, a large aquatic lizard who spent some time finding tasty titbits to nibble on under the water.

After Butterfly Springs we headed to our final port of call in Limmen, the Western Lost city. This is a bit harder to get to, involving a drive down a very sandy 28km track. Because it is a bit tricky to navigate, and so remote, the access track is usually locked, and to get into it you need to borrow a key from the rangers office, a few kilometres from the start of the access track at Nathan River.

A visit to the rangers office should be on your list of things to do when in Limmen, as it is set in the former homestead of the park, and the buildings are fascinating to look at. As with the Bullita Homestead in Gregory National Park, there is a small display on homestead life as well as information on the park itself.

After successfully retrieving the key from a wonderfully bearded ranger, we set off down the track, taking our time and enjoying the scenery. Finally the Western Lost City loomed into view, and absolutely spectacular it was. There were giant rock columns stretching out into the distance, as far, in fact, as the eye could see.

These were accompanied by hollowed out amphitheatre formations (we had our lunch in one of these, it was quite weird), all surrounded by what seemed to be infinite miles of outback nothing. We truly were in the middle of nowhere. A short hop and scramble up a path, and we were rewarded with stunning views across the O’Keefe valley. Once again, it felt like we could be the last people on earth.

Finally we left Limmen and emerged back into the Northern Territory equivalent of civilisation, near the town of Mataranka. Here it was only appropriate to wash a bit more of the grime off ourselves in the absolutely amazing (and free!) thermal springs.

The best of these are the Bitter Springs, a thermal spring fed river with a section around four hundred metres long set aside for swimming. The water is absolutely crystal clear, and you can float with the current from one end to the other, sharing the space with countless fish, the odd terrapin, and a few rather scary looking spiders suspended in the palm fronds lining the banks. A truly remarkable way to end a visit to another wonderful part of Australia.

From a four wheel driving perspective, the main road through the park is not too challenging,  being a fairly decent gravel surface all the way, although corrugations, patches of bull dust and washouts can occur. There are also a couple of shallow creek crossings, although as we did the whole thing deep into the dry season, these weren’t a problem. I would expect the conditions to be somewhat more tricky in the rainy season, or “the wet” as it is known locally. Some of the side roads to access the Lost Cities or campgrounds are a little more tricky, with deep sandy sections and more difficult river crossings. For more information on things to do, camping, and when to visit, the excellent Northern Territory government page has heaps of information, right here.

Offroad in Oz: Gregory National Park

Gregory National Park is not on most visitors to-do lists when visiting Australia’s Northern Territory. It doesn’t have the dramatic natural wonders of Kakadu or the myriad water holes and easy accessibility of Litchfield. It doesn’t have the gorges of Katherine National Park, or the incredibly well known majesty of Uluru.

What it does have, on the other hand, are miles and miles of out of the way superb off road track. Which was why, when travelling through the Northern Territory, we decided to spend nine days exploring it.

Gregory is not a national park that is for the faint of heart. Other than the dirt access road to the rangers station and primary camping facility, every other “track” in the park is for serious four wheel drive vehicles only. Water and toilets are of the bring your own and spade variety respectively. There are crocodile laden river crossings, roads strewn with tyre shredding limestone boulders and seriously steep hills to ascend and descend (one of which is so steep you are advised to only go down it). All of this is packaged up in a awfully remote part of the Australian outback.

For our trip around Oz we had picked a vehicle which was supposedly perfect for the challenge, a diesel Toyota Landcruiser 80 series. Whilst she didn’t score highly on the fuel economy front, or the providing a wonderful interior in which to hide from inclement weather front, what she did do, incredibly well, was off road work.

I should point out that I was not, when I went to Australia, an expert at four wheel driving. My co-traveller at the time didn’t have so much as a driving license to his name, and I had done the bare minimum of four wheel driving tuition in a Land Rover around a farm in Northumbria, in the North of England. I did, at least, have a book on the subject, which gave me some handy hints. Our vehicle was entirely stock, so we didn’t have the giant wheels, or souped up suspension, or well, anything else that every other four wheel drive vehicle we seemed to encounter had. We had a broken winch, which we had destroyed on our second attempt at winching someone out of a hole. Clearly this wasn’t much use. In fact, now I look back on the whole thing, I’m pretty sure we were fairly underprepared for the adventure we were embarking on.

The 13,000 square kilometre Gregory National Park was once a cattle station, and the majority of the tracks within it follow old cattle stock routes, as originally used by the drovers to muster the cattle. The campsites available to stop over in are also where the drovers would have rested on these trips, so there was a real sense of experiencing a bit of Australian outback history. Our trip started out at the Bullita Homestead campground, which, as the name suggests, is next to the site of the stations original homestead buildings. The buildings themselves all still survive, and have been turned into a display detailing what life was like for the early settlers. In conclusion, having read the information, it was bloody hard. Outside the main buildings, the original cattle sorting station, constructed from wood, stands in all it’s glory. It’s absolutely fascinating stuff.

From the Bullita Homestead we took the Bullita Stock Route, one of the shorter four wheel drive tracks in the park. This 96km route is suggested to take around eight hours, so we could have done it in a day, but we decided that as we were in no rush, we would take it easy and stop off at all three of the campsites on the way around. This turned out to be incredibly rewarding, as the park was largely deserted (we saw, on average, one other vehicle every two days), so it really felt like we were on our own in the outback. By day we would take our time to do a section of the track, which involved careful river crossings and driving over seriously rough terrain, by night we would make camp under the stars and sit by the glow of the campfire, wondering what life would have been like for the early pioneers with their horses and cattle, struggling to make a living from this tough environment.

After three days on the Bullita loop, we ended up back at the Homestead, and this time we struck south along the Humbert, Wickham and Gibbie tracks, with a combined distance of some 150km. Again, we took our time, taking four days to traverse their length. Some of the parts of these tracks took us up steep hills, and afforded us tremendous views of the surrounding outback plains, with a deep blue sky stretching off seemingly forever into the horizon. It was really quite staggering stuff.

We were certainly lucky with our vehicle on the route. We passed one driver whose steering rods had snapped, leaving them stranded for days. They were far better equipped than us, in terms of spare gear, but had clearly lucked out on this occasion. The ranger had been informed, and spares were on the way, so other than offering them food and water, which they didn’t need, we weren’t of much use.

Our safety precautions were to carry sufficient water and food to last us for around a month should anything go wrong, plus we had registered with the excellent and free 4WD registration service, with whom you check in and out at the start and end of your route. If you fail to call, they dispatch help along the route you say you had taken. Luckily their services were not needed, as our vehicle rallied excellently to the task, even with a novice like me behind the wheel.

All in all, if you are travelling in the Northern Territory of Australia, have a suitable vehicle, and want to see some really out of the way outback with a bit of Australian pioneer history thrown in, I can highly recommend taking a few days to explore Gregory. It is definitely worth it. Even if the flies were a bit intense. For more information on four wheel driving in Gregory, the excellent Northern Territory Government Parks site can be found here, with factsheets and maps. Alternatively, if you are in the area already, the small town of Timber Creek hosts an excellent ranger station.

Memories of Oz: The NT

Well, the dreams of a glorious summer in Europe have slightly faded this week, and been replaced by a rather wet and grey summer in Europe. I’m sure this will pick up, but since it is raining, there isn’t a whole lot of exploring to be done, so I will instead wax lyrically about some of the parts of Australia I visited on my trip. .

I am often asked which parts of my trip were my favourite, and this is a tricky one to answer. A 60,000km road trip lasting a year is going to have a lot of highlights. But invariably I find my mind being cast back to the few months spent in the Northern Territory.

Some quick facts for you. At around 1.3million square kilometres, the Northern Territory is over five times the size of the UK. But it only has two hundred and twenty seven thousand inhabitants. In other words, there is a lot of space. Admittedly a lot of this space is taken up by vast swathes of empty nothing, the classic scorched earth outback that you would imagine or remember from films like Crocodile Dundee. And key scenes from that film were indeed filmed in the Northern Territory, mostly in the Kakadu National Park. A further bit of scale for you, Kakadu National Park, one of seventeen major parks in the Northern Territory, is the same size as Slovenia. The idea here being that Australia is a big old place.

So why was this giant bit of largely nothing counted amongst my highlights?  Well, this was the part of the trip that really showcased the sort of Australia that I had always imagined existed. The red earth accompanied by the scrubland of the bush extending forever. Giant eagles soaring in an endlessly vast and otherwise seemingly empty sky. The roads that you could drive on for six hundred kilometres, passing only a road train and some rather squished looking roos. The way that, in the dry season at least, clouds became mythical creatures, beings that you rarely saw. The fact that if you didn’t plan your food shopping correctly, you would end up on a 1000km round trip just to do a bit of re-stocking.

It is rare to find so much vaguely accessible wilderness in the world today. All you need is a fairly decent four wheel drive, a good set of provisions and a slightly gung ho attitude, and you can go and get seriously far away from everything and everyone. Apart from the flies it should be mentioned. Those follow you everywhere. Bring a fly net.

The other major highlight of the Northern Territory were the quite frankly awesome waterholes. As most of the rivers are filled up with five metre long man eating crocodiles, swimming is not generally seen as a viable option, which is often a pity as it is a rather fine way to relieve oneself of the grime and sweat accumulated from the outback lifestyle. Luckily, crocodiles aren’t so  good at climbing up waterfalls, so there are spots all over the place where you can get a refreshing dip in a beautiful rock pool without fear of being eaten alive. Kakadu National Park has more than it’s fair share of these, from the rockpool under the mighty 200m high Jim Jim falls, to the more serene Maguk falls, to the large pool at Gunlom, which incidentally, was the scene of the fish catching incident of Dundee fame. And nearly all of the other National Parks are as beautiful, and slightly less crowded (if that word can be used), than Kakadu.

If four wheel driving is more your thing, then the northern territory has that in spades. This was where we cut our teeth on river crossings, boulder descents, mud driving, sand driving, winch rescue… well, all the good stuff really. It was also, I should point out, where we wrecked our rear differential, imploded our radiator and became experts at tyre changing. We also streamlined the vehicle somewhat, all that stuff that sticks off the side of a truck being mostly just fodder for the trees to rip apart (wing mirrors anyone?). Learning, it turns out, can be an expensive process.

So, those are my memories of the Northern Territory. There was a lot of driving, a lot of swimming, a fair bit of time spent in that oh so wonderful of Australian establishments, the roadhouse (think service station cum pub full of rough and ready outback characters), a lot of camping under the stars and generally enjoying life. And I've not even mentioned Uluru, Alice Springs… I could go on and on. But I will save all that, and talk of my other favourite parts, including Tasmania and Western Australia, for another post and another rainy European day.