Visiting Kakadu & Darwin

...or, as my 2 year old says, Visiting Cockadoodle and Darling...

Hey, it's true what they say, it's really hot up there! They call it their cold season. Mental note: do NOT visit over summer, it may kill you. As it was I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. Felt amazing. Want to do it or something similar every year. Healthy thing, to get out of our damp damp winters.

The added attraction with Darwin for us was fabulous family members I haven't had the chance to catch up with for some time, so we did lots of dinners and markets with our awesome kin, who also put us up in their apartment, kidlets and all.

Strange thing, a city with hardly any historical buildings- as we all know, historically they were all either bombed to smithereens in ww2 or blown away in 74. I can't honestly say that the architecture is in general much chop (their parliament house is cool tho). But they have a dem fine waterfront, with a humongous wave pool. If it was Melbourne, a 33 degree day would see an outdoor inner city wave pool crowded out, but the crowds were pleasant rather than over the top. It's a little town, really, and 33 degrees is just another July day, nothing to go for a swim about...They also have a gorgeous sunset market at Mindil with heaps of performers, food, etc etc.

On to Kakadu: we stayed at a place called Cooinda, which is in the middle of the park. Awesome lagoon pool, with a waterfall, which is just as well, since all of the real rock pools and waterfalls are croc prone (and were too far to get to with small kids anyway). We learnt quickly to take ki sightseeing early morning or early evening and spend the hot middle of the day sleeping or at the pool&cafe/bar...

Stand out experiences: driving through the park late at night, past bush fires burning merrily next to the road ( lit deliberately by the indigenous owners & park rangers). Territorians shrug & are confident their patchwork burn off policies have been working since before the word policy was introduced , courtesy of the local aboriginal tribes. Us Mexicans have a different modern relationship to fire in national parks. It creeped me out.

Yellow Waters Billabong is a World Heritage listed wetland. Husby said "I feel as if someone's crept in just before we got here and strategically placed truckloads of animals around our tour, because it feels impossible to believe that there's really this many animals wandering around freely anywhere, let alone in front of us".

Wot else? Rock paintings, lookout points, buffalo, crocs, spending an entire 7 days in the company of my family without us killing each other....And the kids got to run through a sprinkler. What with ten years of drought and water restrictions I don't think ever of my kids has ever seen a water sprinkler before let alone got to run through one. If I can download my photos I'll do just that.