From Gunlom in Kakadu (Northern Territory)—Out in the wide open dust (Monday, 2 June, 2008: 10:30am)

It’s late morning in the Great Kakadu National Park, the top of the Top End in the Northern Territory (NT is not a state of Australia and is owned in part by Aboriginal communities), where even time is unique (the time zone here is shifted by 30 minutes, when it seems the rest of the world goes by 1 hour increments). The past few days have been really fantastic and have felt really different from previous trips. The big difference is that we hired a campervan—our usual small sedans would actually be much more expensive! I was reluctant to get the campervan at first, particularly since they seem like such the ‘tourist’ thing to do, and also because I had never been in one before, but after the first day I really loved it. Overall, I feel much more relaxed during this trip than on any other trip. Seth and I have joined the ranks of old retirees; cooking, sleeping, and living out of our vehicle, and not even considering staying at a hostel or backpackers. (Although our campervan is really more of a van with a high roof than the lavish RVs retirees tend to opt for.) We have a tiny sink (which holds a few liters of water), mini fridge, gas stove, and appliances (which can be used if the vehicle is plugged in). The back also folds into a double bed, and when the boot/trunk is open to the cool night air, provides the best sleeping experience we have had in months. In fact, with the exception of staying at the hostel in Coffs Harbour, this camper is the most bed-like thing I have slept in since leaving New Zealand at the end of February, and sure beats sleeping on the ice-cold floor of my frigid share-house in Canberra! In addition, the camper eliminates those things I dislike the most about traveling, including trying to fight crowds and find accommodation, needing to be checked out by 10am, having to pack and unpack every day, and having to get to the next hostel on time. Plus, we only pay about $10-15 per night to camp, while we would be paying $40-50 to stay at a hostel. In terms of fuel economy, so far it hasn’t been too bad. I suppose we do miss out on staying at cramped, dingy backpackers with dozens of German youths delighting us with their stories of world travel, but I suppose I will make do.

Our campervan

When we arrived in Darwin late Thursday night (after nearly missing our flight out of Melbourne due to the long, sluggish queue… stupid Tiger…), we slept in the airport. The next morning Seth went running and showered in the arrivals terminal, then we took a taxi to the rental place to pick up our van. We drove out of town to the nearest Woolies, stocked up on all our groceries for the week (thank goodness for the little fridge!), and took off south to the nearby Litchfield National Park. We spent the day driving down the main out-and-back road through the park, visiting the field of giant magnetic termite mounds (each mound built in a north-south angle to reduce late afternoon sun exposure), Tolmer Falls, and Wangi Falls. We spent the night in a town just south of the park, called Adelaide River. We were so exhausted that it was hard to make it and it got pretty late, but it was great to find a place to stay, which ended up being at the local show-grounds, and we parked right beside a ‘dodge’m’ (bumper) cars rink.

Magnetic termite mounds, Litchfield National Park

Giant termite mound, Litchfield National Park

Wangi Falls, Litchfield National Park

The campervan park at the Adelaide River Showgrounds

On Saturday morning we went running up a hill from town, through a historic rail line, which lead to some old, overgrown WWII ammunition buildings and bunkers. The scenery was pretty crazy—the town was both dry and lush with palm trees, and also dumpy and rough yet well maintained. The run took us through an old side road used during the war, and near the end we heard something in the bushes, and as we stopped and watched, a brown snake came out and crossed right in front of us! Well, at least we think it was a brown snake; but either way, it sure freaked us out!

Old war buildings, Adelaide River

After the run we hung around town for a little bit and I tried calling home, but kept getting disconnected. We also stopped just outside of town to look at some birds (little woodswallows and rainbow bee eaters), before returning south towards Katherine, passing brumbies (wild horses) along the way.

Adelaide River general store

Rainbow bee-eater

Road trains

Katherine is a fairly rough outback town, full of Aboriginal people and dotted with loud tourists, many of whom, I’d hate to say, sounded American. We stopped for petrol, Seth got heckled by an intoxicated Aborigine, and then we checked out an Aboriginal art gallery. We had been wanting to buy local art, and it was the perfect place to do so (we would probably have regretted it if we returned home completely empty handed of any sort of Australian ‘souvenirs’ after living in the country for two years). We bought two paintings on canvas and a wood-burned boomerang (cheesy, I know, but it looks pretty neat). These are the first real decorations for our home when we return to the US.

Katherine

From town we turned off to Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park), where we camped out at a rather crowded campground. At least we stayed at an unpowered site so we were able to keep out of very densely populated ‘caravan country’.