Beth's Oz Adventure

I departed Darwin at the end of last week and travelled 12 hours south west to the small town of Kununurra. Have changed State and time zone again too and am now in Western Australia (7 hours ahead of UK). The journey also involved a stop at the quarantine checkpoint on the border of WA where all fruit and veg have to be surrendered or a fine of $10,000 applies. And as we discovered, the quarantine inspectors leave no stone unturned in the search for rogue vegies, as apparent by the dismantled truck next to us at the checkpoint. You can only imagine my horror upon arrival in Kununurra when I opened my food bag to discover I had inadvertantly smuggled through a whole bulb of garlic! Luckily I managed to destroy the evidence (in a nice pasta sauce) before the cops caught up with me!

So am still here in Kununurra and on Monday did my first full day's work in over 3 months!! Yes the time has come to replenish the funds and I have got myself A JOB!! Am working in a coffee shop here, although it was not until I began that I discovered the extent of the nutritional horrors that were to unfold - main task is increasing rates of heart disease through selling deep fried everything to obese people and children, low point so far was small toddler given fanta and fried chicken at 7:30am! So have implemented a secret strategy to improve the diets of Kununurrians (code name: operation lettuce). Cannot go into details but involves Derren Brown type subliminal messages and I am closely monitoring sales of chips for improvements...

Earlier this week spent a few days in the spectacular Kakadu and Litchfield national parks. Kakadu is world heritage listed for both cultural and natural heritage and has been home to the aboriginal people for at least 50,000 years. Quite spacious at 20,000 square kilometres too so could only see a tiny fraction of it.

First stop was a boat trip on the Mary river for some croc spotting then was onto Maguk for some monsoon forest type walking followed by a swim in the crystal clear plunge pool at the base of the waterfall (one of the few croc free places to swim in Kakadu and as featured in Crocodile Dundee!) Then went to the yellow water wetlands for sunset.


Croc & Sea eagle spotted on Mary river


Maguk

Sunset at yellow river

Day 2 began at 5am and a bumpy 2 hour drive along dirt tracks and through rivers (I prayed to the god of 4 wheel driving) to the first stop at Twin Falls gorge. Accessible only by boat and a short walk, it is one of the few waterfalls in Kakadu that flows all year round (we are coming to the end of the dry season and the last rain was in April). Was absolutely breathtaking and completely unspoiled, definately a piece of paradise. Was then onto Jim Jim falls for more breathtaking scenery and a swim at the base of the falls (currently down to a trickle - only flows during the wet season).

View from boat on way to twin falls

Twin falls

Jim Jim

Cooling off in pool at base of Jim Jim

Wallaby spotted en route

We spent the afternoon at Nourlangie rock, an ancient aboriginal rock art site. The art was produced using ochres and hematite and has definately stood the test of time (some is believed to be 35,000 years old).

Wallaby in x ray style, shows the internal organs and skeleton

Some kind of party!

This is Nabulwinjbulwinj - a dangerous spirit who eats females after striking them with a yam, one not to be messed with!

A ceremony

The mimi spirit is said to have produced this one and others like it which are dotted around, often in unusual and inaccessible places.

Day 3 was spent at Litchfield national park, home to lots of enormous termite mounds - I never thought I would become enthused about termites but these guys are AMAZING!

Each mound is home to tens of thousands of termites, but only one queen, who can live up to 80, yes 80 years old!! The worker termites make up around 85% and around 10% are the soldier termites which engage in chemical warfare with any intruders and repair any holes in the mound within minutes of them appearing. The remaining termites purpose is to procreate and fly off to start new mounds.

The mounds grow approx 1 metre every 10 years and are built to keep the temperature at a constant 30c. They also survive flooding during the wet season and are as hard as cement (in world war 2 they were knocked down and used as airstrips).

These are magnetic termite mounds that look like giant gravestones and all face the same direction so that the least possible surface area is ever exposed to the sun - looked just like a graveyard and a bit eerie as the rest of the landscape was burnt out.


These are cathedral mounds - the shape helps to control the temp again as part is always in the shade.

Litchfield is also home to lots of croc free swimming holes and we sampled a couple at buley rockhole and florence falls, spectacular scenery once again but very crowded.


Florence falls

Last stop was the Didgeridoo Hut, home to some aboriginal artists, a few emus, and cuddles the python, who turned herself into some interesting headwear!

Made it to Darwin! A whole new State and time zone (now 8 and a half hours ahead of UK). Flew here yesterday on the rather bizarre flight path of Cairns - Brisbane - Darwin. Yes only in Oz do you fly 2 hours south east before changing planes and then travelling 4 hours north west to get to your destination.

Today explored the city and went to the amazing Mindil beach sunset market where there are over 200 food stalls, my favourite of which was obviously the Roadkill Cafe, where I was spoilt for choice between camel, buffalow, possum, emu, wallaby, kangaroo and crocodile, or even the all species special! Saw my first west coast sunset too. Weather here is HOT and today reached 33c, praise the lord for air conditioning is all I can say!

En route to Darwin



Mindil beach market

Sunset this evening

Well i'm still here in the rainforest, 2 months almost completed! We have now been open for just over a week and we even managed to get everything finished on time, well all the important stuff anyway! Pics below of the place all shiny and new.

A yoga retreat has been taking place all week, and due to the unique acoustics of the yoga house myself and fellow wwoofers have been awoken each day at dawn to what I can only describe as a herd of elephants chanting 'om'. I have been working in the restaurant in the evenings assisting the chef and providing cheesecake quality control (tough job but someone's got to do it ;-)

Sadly my time in the rainforest is almost at an end now and I leave on Wednesday for Darwin, a short trip of approx 1800 miles! Then off to do some croc dodging in Kakadu national park hopefully.

Sunrise this morning

Main entrance

The longhouse - reception and restaurant


Completed hut and cabin

View up and down the hill

My home for the last 2 months, Sanctuary is nestled on the top of the right hand ridge of the hill.

Monster moth #2! Apparently is a baby hercules moth - when full grown wings can be as big as a4 sheet of paper.