Roadtrip Broome to Darwin: Hello NT (Nov 10 - Nov 13)

As we arrived in Katherine we wanted to go to Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park) but we were a bit too late to get as far along in the gorge as we wanted so we decided to just go to the look out instead and save the kayaking for the next day. So we went up to the look out which was very beautiful, had a look and some pictures, sweat some more, and then went back to the camp site and jumped into the pool (you've probably noticed a reoccurring theme of pools now).

Around our camp site there were wallabies everywhere, we thought they were so cute and innocent looking, so we disregarded the signs and started to feed them. We got some wicked pictures out of it and it was pretty fun and cute. But then later on...somebody....*cough Berry cough*...forgot to close the trunk and the wallabies went from being cute fuzzy animals to food thieves. They stole our bread, some noodles and ruined a few other things, that being said we still fed them some watermelon after dinner, and at that time there were heaps more because it was night so we had to do it.

The next day we set off kayaking in Katherine Gorge..holy moly, that was super cool. I've never kayaked through a gorge before, and if you haven't done it either you should probably find your nearest gorge and jump in your kayak. It was pretty amazing having these huge sheets of rock either side of you and little caves and things along the sides. The only down side was there was very little shade, and even with all the sunscreen I put on I still got burned on my shoulders, but not too bad. Berry didn't want a single kayak because she said she couldn't make it all the way through and after doing it, we went through 4 gorges and a portage, I realised she was right. Matt and I ended up taking turns with her in the two person kayak and basically giving her a nice leisurely tour of the gorges. No worries though, it turned out to be a really awesome day, even with birds attacking Matt's bag for the bread and Berry leaving the trunk open again and birds attacking our food once we got back.

We left Katherine and started heading towards our next stop, Litchfield National Park. That night we stopped at a camp ground/caravan park/truck stop called Emerald Springs that had a bar and restaurant, so we had our first big meals in a few days and a few beers. In the morning we made a quick swim stop at Douglas hot springs, which was a river with hot springs in it. It was very jungle-y looking, so I was a bit nervous to swim in the water in case of crocs, but there were locals already in the water so I assumed it was all good. Later that day we arrived in Litchfield, which is the perfect size to do the whole thing in a day, and it isn't too rushed. We saw the biggest termite mounds I've ever seen, a few waterfalls, some deep rock hole pools and a huge swamp (check the wiki for all the real names of the places). I cut my leg climbing up/falling off Florence Falls, but I managed to get myself to the top of the falls and have a jump... unfortunately Matt didn't have his waterproof camera at this time which was super disappointing but I've got the scar on my leg as a badge of honour. Litchfield was really beautiful, I can't really say too much more about it, it's something you'd have to see, but the scenery was great and all the people travelling around it were very friendly and helpful.

On the way out of Litchfield was an unsealed road which messed up Matt's car quite a bit. As we got out the speedo stopped working and the transmission was making a loud clunking noise, we all decided it was well worth it though because we liked the national park so much. We arrived in Darwin later that evening, around 7pm, and checked in to our hostel where I met a dude from Markham working at the reception.

That night Matt convinced me to go out and it turned out to be a hilarious night. First off I found out a bar there serves MOOSE HEAD, so I was obviously very pleased about that.. however I was not impressed with the price, $8 a bottle..smh. We met up with Matt's friend Julius and he told me he'd buy me two moose heads of I danced with this skeezy older lady..so obviously I did, and she proceeded to grind all over me and then go back to her husband... what would you do for a moose head? Later on that night I met another older lady and she was telling me how she just got out of an abusive relationship and then proceeded to show me nude photos of herself along with pictures of her children/granchildren on her iPhone..wtf?! so weird....a nice welcome to Darwin I guess..

The next day I woke up still a bit drunk, so I headed over to Coles with Matt and we had a few "free sample" Kebabs... basically just get the food from the hot food counter and walk around and eat it, works quite well. After this we spent the rest of the day in our room recovering and surfing the interwebs, before going to meet up with Matt's cousin at his awesome apartment that over looks the wharf. (Sidebar: Matt's cousin is some sort of officer in the Australian army, he is in command of 6 armoured vehicles that look totally badass, as well as a team of around 20 privates. So the army pays for his AWESOME apartment, and his army friends all live in the same building... nice life). That night Matt's cousin brought us to The Wharf which is kind of like Marche, I guess, there are lots of little food shops and you order and they buzz you to pick up your food. I had Chilli Crocodile from an asian food place, and it was delicious. This place was awesome by the way, not sure if I portrayed that properly, but I really liked it. Cool atmosphere and delicious food.

Peace & Love

Roadtrip Broome to Darwin: Goodbye WA (Nov 7 - Nov 9)

We started our journey with no real plans of what we wanted to do or see. Matt had a few ideas but we were really just going to wing it and see what we could find. We set off at around 9am (I think...), grabbed some groceries for the next few days and hit the road. The first sign I got telling me this was going to be an awesome trip was we saw a huge bush fire on the side of the road while driving, it went on for about 1Km and was pretty far back as well. That was really cool, first time I've seen a bush fire, you can hear the excitement in my voice in the video I took. The second sign was it finally rained (it never rains in Broome and its hot all the time), so that was some sweet relief from the heat, and it made a nice rainbow that looked like it was coming straight out the road.

We rocked up to a camp site halfway between Halls Creek and Kununarra just as it was getting dark, pitched the tent (Matt slept in his car alone, for various reasons.. one of which is a hilarious/creepy story) and started cooking our dinner of burgers and salad. After dinner we started to hear these really deep grunts coming from the darkness, they sounded really close and a bit aggressive. Matt and I knew that there could be wild boar in the area so obviously we went to investigate with our flash lights at the ready. We hunted the noise down for a few minutes (sidebar: we found a drunk guy passed out in a chair outside his car, that was pretty funny) then we finally discovered the source of the noise. It was just a cow wandering around grunting and eating grass, not as exciting as a wild boar but it was a fun adventure for the first night. Throughout the hunt we kept discussing our escape routes, and how fast we thought we could kick off our flip flops and bolt back towards the car.

I don't think I've ever sweat as much as I did that night (even up until now), I thought it was bad at night... then the sun decided to come up and turn the tent into an oven. I had to retreat to a nearby bench at around 5am (much to the chagrin of Berry, as there is no way to get out of a tent without waking the other person up), an hour or two later the other two woke up and we got started on breakfast. We had beans on toast then left for Kununarra, which is the boarder town between Western Australia and Northern Territory.

As we were driving along we saw a few bats fly across the road and into a tree, we thought hmm that's cool, then we looked into the tree and it was inundated with bats.. along with the three other trees around it. So we had to screech (haha..get it..bats...screech) to a halt and whip out the cameras to take pictures and videos, it was so loud and there was a strange smell coming from the trees, which I assumed was the bat poo (just found out guano is only the name for poop from cave dwelling bats, seals and sea birds).

The scenery on the way to Kununarra was absolutely amazing, seeing the change in scenery between Geraldton and now this was crazy. It went from completely flat, dusty desert, and wild flowers to large hills, trees and greenery everywhere. This region is known as the Kimberley Region and it's know for the mountains and being very beautiful, and it sure was. (Sidebar: en route we were seeing a lot of, what looked to be, random pedestrian crossing signs. But then I realised they are probably Aboriginal tracks that crazy white people put a road through)

Our plan was to go to El Questro Gorge, but unfortunately it closed the week before we arrived. The National Park was still very beautiful to drive around in though so that was ok, and we also saw some dingo pups and probably the mother chowing on a dead cow which was cool. Oh wait... did I forget to mention Matt's air con was broken in his car...and it was getting hotter by the kilometre..oh..well I mentioned it now. It's also hot ALL the time when you get closer to the north and staying along the coast, so swimming is a must. However, the further north you go, the more dangerous things are in the water..like jellyfish and salt water crocs, so swimming areas are scarce. Just outside of Kununarra town centre was a swimming area so we jumped on that opportunity to cool off. There we found a cool tree sticking out the water with a rope swing, and some local kid was doing back flips off the top like a BAWSE, so that was pretty sweet.

Later we arrived at the Lake Argyle caravan park which had a wicked infinity pool, so it looked like the pool was running off into the lake. It was really an amazing view, so Matt and I decided to do flips off the edge of the pool to celebrate the awesomeness. I probably could have stayed there for a week or so, just meeting the people that came through and talking to the caravaners, very nice place. We spent most of our time there in the pool, we did go down to some look outs to see the lake from a different angel but it looked the best from the pool.

We left for Katherine (first "major town" LOL in Norther Territory) in the afternoon the next day. As we were leaving we saw a bush fire on the top of a mountain that we were told was caused by a lightning strike the previous night, pretty cool. The next cool thing we saw was two wedge tail eagles eating a freshly dead wallaby in the middle of the road. Now normally when you approach birds on the road they fly away, even if they are eating, they just fly away and come back and continue. But these two MASSIVE eagles didn't want to give up this meal, so as we approached them they just stood their ground and opened up their wings...and I'm no animal specialist but I'm pretty sure they were giving us the "What the eff are you looking at?!" face.. so we just slowed right down and had to drive around them as they continued their feast. I couldn't believe they were going to fight the car, badass. That night we just camped at a random camp spot, again it was blazing hot but I was getting more used to it by now.

On the NT in the morning! Thanks for the great time WA, it was a blast but I'm glad to see the back of you, gotta see the rest of this vast and beautiful land~

Peace & Love

Broome Broome~ (Nov 2 - Nov 6)

I arrived in Broome with no clue of where to go, where any hostels were, basically without any kind of useful information - and it was also around 7pm so all the places that could have given me some guidance were closed. So I hopped off the bus fully convinced I'd have to spend the night on the streets of Broome until I could find a visitors centre or something to find out where things are. Luckily the bus dropped us off not too far from a McDonalds, which means free internet. So I nonchalantly walked over like this was my plan all along, sat down and found the nearest hostel.

The next step was finding my way around, carrying my bags, at night with crazy Aboriginals wandering around everywhere. So I just headed off in what I thought was the right direction, then had to double back and start going in the real right direction, and I ended up just asking the drunkest guy where the hostel was - he checked all the backpacker boxes, long hair, rags around his ankles, unwashed, very drunk. Turns out he was actually one of the managers at the hostel I was going to stay in, so I walked and he stumbled all the way together - bonus.

On the way I saw the Swedish girls hanging at a bus stop drinking with Luke, I stopped and chatted for a bit then went to go check in. After that initial adventure I didn't really do much for the rest of my time there just went to Cable Beach a few times, supposedly one of the top 10 beaches in the world.. it was pretty nice, then just drinking and lounging by the pool. Broome is really humid so I stayed in the water most of the time and the hostel I stayed in (Kimberley Klub) was very nice, it was YHA so no surprises there, extremely clean and nice people.

I eventually found a ride to Darwin, just a posting in the hostel offering 2 seats to Darwin, with an English guy named Matt who was also taking a German girl named Berit or Berry. Matt had been in Broome for a few months (3 I think) working as a camel tour guide, he basically just walked with the people as they road the camels along the beach, probably the best job ever. So on his last night his friends had a beach party, there were other things going on as well I think a birthday and maybe some other people leaving as well. That was pretty fun, sitting out on Cable Beach watching the moon and just chilling under the stars. Made for a wonderful end to my time in Broome.