Day 80 – Darwin.

Everyone who has stayed in this room seems to be up and out at 8am, I’m not quite sure why as none of them are working in Darwin, clearly I’m missing something! I walked down the high street looking in shops and stuff, I would do more interesting things like go to Kakadu national park for the day but it’s about $200 which is ridiculous plus I spent 3 days looking at Uluru etc and it’ll be pretty similar to that. Everything else to do here is about $30 and I’ve seen crocodiles and other things the last time I was here so I’ve decided to save money and just do the free/cheap things instead. That and treat myself to ice cream of course. Speaking of, for breakfast I went into a café and had a scone with cream and jam for brunch… it was terrible. I don’t really know why I thought it would be as good as home, maybe because the scone looked really good and appealing in the cabinet but I shouldn’t have been fooled!

I made my way down to the lagoon and thought about going into the wave pool but decided against it. Imagine The Pyramids (swimming pool in Portsmouth) mega waves, that’s what it looks like but outside. To make up for my terrible brunch I treated myself to another ice cream from Trampoline.

It all got a bit too much so I cooled off with a drink in The Precinct a pub/bar near the wave pool. I read some more of my book and if you wanted to know I am currently reading ‘Skinny Dip’ by Carl Hiaasen and loving it! I’m already 70% through and I only started it when I arrived in Darwin and will finish it before I leave, tells you how hooked I am!

I went for another lay in the sun before heading back to the hostel and organising my bag so it’s ready for the morning. I chucked out a few tops and I’m still finding it hard to close… WHAT IS THIS?! Basically I blame the Australian Open towel for taking up so much room. That is my problem!

Day 79 – Darwin rainy season.

I woke up quite late, about 11, I think the week of early mornings and lack of sleep has finally caught up on me, surprising as these beds are very squeaky, move a lot and look a bit like you’re in a hospital.

Anyway, I got up and for I guess breakfast but technically lunch I walked a few doors down to a Thai place to grab some food. I went for the classic Pad Thai and oh my god, the portion was massive, so good but it was huge! Once again I made my way down to chill at the lagoon. The reason you can’t swim in the actual sea is because they have a big problem with sharks and at this time of year jellyfish too. On the walk to the lagoon you do walk past some old ruins from world war two when the Japanese bombed the place but the signs kinda just say ‘ohh look, ruins!’ and that’s about it… really informative.

Early afternoon I walked over to Trampoline to grab an ice cream which was awesome! It’s like $4 for 2 flavours and they’re some crazy flavours I’ve never heard of and so Australian, you can even get lamington flavour! Basically chocolate and coconut but still, it’s the thought that counts. Within about an hour of eating this the heavens opened and it was hammering it down, I could see it coming closer so as I was walking away it started to rain which was quite amusing to watch all these people sun bathing start screaming and grabbing there stuff. It was a drop here and there and then BAM! Torrential rain. I sat under a shelter for a while reading my book and waiting for it to die down a little before making my way back.

The best thing about being in hostels is talking to other people who have been to the same places, plan to go to or have been to the places you’re going to. For example this evening I found out there isn’t a train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur like many websites say, they stopped that about 3 years ago and the overnight bus will get you there about 4am which is very helpful to know as I don’t wanna arrive in KL at 4am! So the plan now is to stay another night in Singapore and get the super early bus to get me to KL for midday which means I can still catch the practise rounds for the F1, happy days!

Day 78 – Darwin, Flix in the wet.

I discovered late yesterday that on a weekend this place basically shuts down. Most shops shut at 1 or 2 on a Saturday afternoon and don’t open at all on a Sunday. Bars and stuff yes but anything else no, so I was at a bit of a loose end. Before I came to Darwin I googled about an outside cinema, as they’re everywhere in Australia, especially in the summer, because of the good weather. I found that although it’s rainy season they were putting on films every Sunday called ‘Flix in the wet’. I watched the trailer for ‘Short term 12’ and thought it looked quite interesting and a ticket to go was only $10 so I thought, why not! I made my way to the Deckchair Cinema which is near the harbour but as I got there I realised I was in the wrong place… obviously it’s rainy season so why would they show the films outside? Silly me! So I made my way back up the long flight of stairs to where my hostel was and about 1 block down was the cinema. Finally in the right place! The film was alright but it had a bit of an abrupt ending, the best bit about the experience was being in an air-conditioned cinema escaping the humidity of outside.

I left the cinema and walked down to the lagoon for a chill in the sun, quick swim and to read my book. When I finished here I made my way back to my hostel because I still had a few hours of internet leftover from the night before so I booked my Singapore and Kuala Lumpur stay and researched about some other things. The most annoying thing about this place is to use the internet you have to sit in the lobby because although you can connect to the wifi in your room the signal doesn’t actually work.

Day 77 – Alice Springs to Darwin.

I needed to check out by 10am but lucky for me the airport shuttle was picking me up at 9.55am. I checked in alright and because it’s only a domestic flight I was even allowed to take my own big water bottle through customs with me which was a bonus! Today I was flying with Qantas and the flight was barely full so I had a whole row to myself, which was awesome! We even got given an inflight mean for a 2 hour flight which I didn’t know I was getting, I’m glad seeing as it cost me an arm and a leg to fly with them, not that I had any other choice seeing as they are the only airline who fly north. I watched The Book Thief on the plane and found the movie dragged and didn’t tell the story anywhere near as good as the book. I didn’t even get to finish the whole film before we landed, 15minutes early I’d like to add!

The shuttle to the city was easy peasy and the guy dropped me right outside. It wasn’t the sunny here but bloody hell was it hot! I’m staying at Melaleuca on Mitchell which is in an awesome location and walking distance to pretty much anything you want to do, bonus points for coles being a 2 second walk across the road. I went for a walk around and down to the waterfront to see the lagoon and wave pool which I’ll go to at some point, it doesn’t look like there is a lot here to do but it’ll be nice to rest after an intense 3 days along with the early starts! I probably walked about 30k in the past 5 days as well as paddle boarding on Monday.

Day 76 – Kings Canyon to Alice Springs.

Another 4.30am wake up to be out of camp by 5.30. We made our way to Kings Canyon to watch the sunrise. We made our way up a mountain of stairs (literally, I thought I might die) to the top and then across to the perfect spot. We were the first of many groups to arrive, which was good because we managed to take the best spots! Kings Canyon is completely made from sandstone so you've got to be careful near the edge as it can just break away.

The sunrise was beautiful, more impressive than yesterday but that's just because we were closer, what I mean is closer to the rocks so the views and colours looked better. Absolutely amazing! 

We then proceeded around the canyon on a 6.6k rim walk or more hike I guess. It was a bit tough on the ol' knees. Along the way we saw the North and South walls as well as the Garden of Eden. The canyon is made up of two types of sandstone with a thin layer of impermeable shale in between. There was one part where the rocks look like layers and this is because they’re ancient sand dunes and as the sand moves from place to place because of the wind it creates layers. As well as this there used to be a lake up here and you can still see the ripple marks left on the sand. The walk took us about 2 hours to do and when we made it back to the bus just before 9am we headed straight back to camp.

For lunch (even though it was only 10am) we had fajitas cooked on a BBQ… it’s amazing the things you can do, it’s just a giant wok really. They were damn tasty and exactly what I needed.

Just before 11am we left to make the long drive back to Alice Springs. We stopped a couple of times for toilets and snacks but we made it back to Alice earlier than expected at just gone half 4. 

This entire trip has been quite amusing to watch 15 people use 2 plug sockets with an extension lead and a million adapters just so they can charge everything. People these days can't live without the Internet and their electronics. I know that's what I'm writing this on, but I find it more of a luxury than a necessity. It's just more useful to book hostels and check in online for flights instead of finding an Internet cafe.

That evening 4 out of 16 of us headed over to Annie’s hostel for dinner and drinks, along with our lovely tour guide Ria! About 8 buses came back so it was quite busy by the time we turned up.