Fine weather, fine ales

OMG... Get yo asses down to Darwin Wooly's, Sierra Nevada Pale is going for $14.99 a six pack!!

Mataranka

Went and swum in some natural thermal springs in the middle of nowhere. Beaut. The water was so crystal clear you could see to the bottom and 32 degrees warm! Not that you need warm water up here but the warmth and minerals certainy do good things for your skin muscles and bones.
Toby hand fed a barramundi which was funny, they are lightning quick and could chomp your finger off if they wanted to. No luck catching them yet but he's certainly enjoying an ale or two by the banks of the Roper River.

Now in Katherine, going to the gorge but are told not much open as crocs around but hoping to get a swim or two in after some bush walks. Then on to litchfield for an awesome waterfall time!

Looking up

I found out that my nana calls Kakadu, KakaDON'T. As in, dont go, too many mozzies. Good one Nana.

We bought an esky and a fly screen which our company Travel Wheels (never ever use them!) will reimburse us for. Really the nature in Kakadu is AMAZING and if you are K Brinsden or G szabat you would LOVE IT. I loved it too. It was unlike anything else. We woke up at sparrows fart this morning to go on the Yellow Waters Billabong cruise and watched the sunrise over the Billabong. We saw hundreds of birds, we saw crocs, snakes (a golden tree snake even i had to admit was pretty, and im not really a snake fan as you know) and beautiful plant life. We saw a huge Jabiru and a little Jesus bird and its teeny tiny babies! we had to pay like $100 each but it was worth it considering that included full hot buffet breakfast. My fathers daughter, I was so happy to be eating and ate my breakfast and lunch worth!!

Seriously I kid you not there were MILLIONS of mozzies out where we camped. When you woke up in the night the sound you heard was of the bush buzzing. Loudly. There were about 20 that made it into our fly screen and even though we were wearing 80% DEET Bushmans we got a few bites or two. A 3am phernegan each knocked us out till we had to be up at 5:45 for the sunrise tour.

We then got the hell out of Kakadu. Now we are camped at Edith Falls which are beautiful. They look classic NT, waterfalls ad swimming holes and sheer red rock faces. We went for a 1.6k walk to a beautiful waterhole and had a dip. It was so refreshing and delicious and beautiful. Maybe, in true Carnes fashion, every holiday needs that first 'everything is going wrong this is crap let's go home' week that makes you truly appreciate the rest. It's a twisted type of holiday niceness.

Half an hour after that

We Realise the fridge is broken and food going off. Add 'working fridge' to the list.

I then prove to Toby that we are NOT hardcore but having a meltdown and crying. I AM NOT HAVING FUN AND I AM SO ITCHY.

One phernegan later and I'm cruising.

One hour later

L: are we hardcore?
T: there's a difference between being hardcore and underprepared. But I guess if you consider taking everything that comes your way and not letting it get to you, I think THAT is hardcore.

Hell is a hot van full of mosquitos

Urgle. Nurgle. Blurgle.

These are the sounds of me waking up our horrendous night sleep. Night 1, NT camping adventure.

We hired a campervan at the recommendation of the nice lady in Darwin tourism. She said, yep well priced company, heard good things and don't go with Wicked Campers. We have ended up with a completely different campervan to what we expected. For the purposes of helping you understand, all the words in apostrophes are things that we were told the campervan HAS, that it clearly DOES NOT HAVE.

It's a 'new' Mitsubishi van with air conditioning and 'working sound system'. It sleeps two, has a gas stove fridge and 'microwave'. It is cheap with 'no hidden extras'. And most importantly it has 'fly screens'.

Really, the rest of the van features we could not care about not having. But people, I deeply, deeply regret driving out of that car yard without checking for BLOODY FLY SCREENS. Kakadu is mozzie central. Mozzies of Australia have their annual conferences here, to learn how to become more ruthless and more badass mozzies. They are huge. Not only are they itchy, but they HURT when they bite. They are, in a word, bastards.

We made dinner too late which meant we cooked in the dark, but here you might as well say 'in the mozzies.' because where there is dark, there is mozzies. We escaped to our van and managed to kill about 50 that had found their way in. Then we went to sleep. Half an hour later we woke drenched in our own sweat. The van was an unbearable hothouse. I jump at the window to open it for some fresh air.... For 5 minutes the window gives some relief. But then we realise, hell hath unleashed its fury on us. The whole van is FULL of mozzies. I make the trip to the front reception to ask how much a cabin costs for the night. $170. Not happening. Do you have any fly screens? No.
Toby has spent these 20 mins On a killing rampage and while he may not be the Crocodile Hunter let him from this time now be known as Tobias, Mozzie Slayer.

The night was spent waking every two hours to turn on the van and blast the air conditioning for half an hour. This morning is still, beautiful in Kakadu, and there is not a.... No wait, one little bastard just bit my arm!!!!!! $&!?!*#

So what to do today? Do we drive two hours back to darwin to sort this out ? Or do we just continue on in this bizarre fashion and come back with zero body fluid due to over sweating?

I have not the answer.



Ps. We did the Croc jumping cruise yesterday... It was AWESOME! I was so close to a massive croc I could have reached out to pat it.

Darwin

Have I only been here 2 days? It feels like an age. We spent Sunday morning eating breakfast at the Nightcliff markets. I had a strawberry and nutella crepe with extra cream (because calories don't count on a Sunday). Toby had an egg ham cheese and special chutney crepe. Yummmmmmmmmo.

We spent the day cruising around town lookin at stuff. We went to the museum which was fascinating. They have a Cyclone Tracy exhibit where you can go into a dark room and the play the sound of the cyclone loudly above you, imitating what it would be like to be trapped in a bunker. I thought, oh thus is ok for 10 minutes but I could not imagine what it would be like for hours and if the sound was the sound of your neighbourhood being ripped to shreds

I also found an irankandji jellyfish, and to give you an idea of size, here it is on the right next to a smallish box jellyfish.

We also caught up with JR And Robyn which was delightful.

I died and went to Bali

So apparently I'm in Bali. Okay, not REALLY. Technically I'm in Darwin, but staying in such an amazing house that it feels like a Balinese resort. The owners have been kind generous and warmly inviting - thanks gals! Their son B has taking instant admiration to Toby (who doesn't really) and we have spent a warm afternoon lazing about their house. 'house' doesn't really describe it though. 'villa' comes close. They designed their place themselves having been inspired by Balinese design and had most of the furniture, wood and tiles made in or imported from Java. More photos to come but here is the bathroom alone.

WHAAAAT?!

It's SO nice.

Ps. Yeah I know it's only day 1 of my trip and I'm already blogging, but I use writing to relax. So for all those 'stop being here and go and have fun' type people., don't worry: I certainly AM.

Tomorrow!

We leave tomorrow!  It's exciting.  We are doing last minute house cleans and sorting out all the stuff four our housie housesitter to move in to.  Op shop runs and vaccumming take up most of the day.


Saturdays forecast:
Melbourne:  17 and showers
Darwin: 32 and sunny!  Hooray!


In bad news, I think I have a cold.  I am going to try K's 'sweat it out' method which was recently successfully implemented by D!  Tonight, going to be in the sweats.  No cold will stop ME from all the fun in the world!


While we have a 23kg limit on our bags, we have only packed about 12kgs each, which I think is doing pretty well.  While I have tried to be frugal in the packing (sorry hair straightener you dont make the cut), I have been wheeling around my bag saying to Toby "I've packed too much!  I know I've packed too much!"  To be fair to myself, the bag is really only at half it's true capacity and there is still plenty of room for lots of fun bought items along the way.  However, I opened up the bag and got rid of ONE lousy tshirt which did not really redistribute much weight.  I know nobody needs as many clothes as I have packed, but I really seem to have a use for EACH one - "No, I NEED to walk around the Louvre in this dress!  It's the perfect Louvre dress!"  (?! tf ?!)

Ready for a holiday

I cleaned out the pantry today.

The pantry won the battle.

It's time for a holiday.

Note: this is my crying face, NOT my
Laughing face.