one long road

A loooooooooooooong road to Darwin. Straight up the centre. Hardly another sole on the road. Alice Springs one way, Darwin the other … easy enough to stay on track. A lot of road, a lot of desert, some more rocks, followed by a lot of abandoned buildings and gas/pee stops. The sun finally came out! Lose the first layer: rain jackets off, check!

First stop… MORE rocks! in the middle of nowhere, as per usual. These ones were very bizzare… I’m pretty confident that the Devil totally lost his marbles and they landed here… (hence the name “Devil’s Marbles”).

Yes, that is an anthill. You can account every metre in height to 10 years of building... So you can get a good sense of how hard and long these little ants work. But, where do they all come from? Well... the Queen ant can be expected to live for 75 years producing 7,000 offspring EVERY DAY! While the King only lives about 3 years and the Queen replaces them as they die off. These anthills are as hard as concrete and it just so happens that many people used to and still do crush them down to use them to make bricks and floors! And we thought THIS one was big...

Lose the second layer: jumpers off, check! An old telegraph station, a UFO landing site, an abandoned airport, an abandoned cattle droving station infested with cane toads, and the Daly Waters Pub later we were well on our way to approaching Darwin. It was great to watch the scenery change. Totally red to green, dry to lush, flat to tall. The weather got warmer, the spinifex grass got greener, the plants got fuller and taller and so did the anthills!

Lose the next layer: clothes off and bathers on, check! It was starting to get humid and tropical!

We finally made it to a place with a decent amount of civilization! The city of Katherine: the 3rd largest city in the outback… of about four… Anyways, there’s the beautiful Katherine Gorge in the area so we were able to hike up the hill to get a nice view over the gorge! This gorge may not have been as big and grand as Kings Canyon… but we did see heaps of fruit bats/flying foxes which happen to be the largest species of bat in the world! Then another swim break at Edith Falls … fresh and refreshing!

Next on the list was Kakadu National Park! A World Heritage Area. This park was huge! 20,000 km² which is about the size of Switzerland and man was it beautiful… definitely worth the four day drive to reach it from Alice. We saw a range of things from crocodiles on a a cruise along the Mary River, original ancient Aboriginal wall art from 20,000 years ago, the greenest most stunning grasslands, pools and waterfalls, and some HUGE anthills!

We made it! From sleeping in swags under the stars, and cooking on campfires in Uluru to sleeping in tents and dining in kitchen tents in Kakadu and licking ants that taste like citrus… We’ve gotten used to the before sunrise wake-ups by now and can’t wait for the next one tomorrow to catch out flight to Cairns where we can have a real bed and days filled with warmth and tropical activities!!!

Sincerely,

AUS