Darwin, Northern Territory—the Top End of Australia. Totally different than the other places we have been so far. Hot, humid, tropical. We came for the parks and the animals. First, Kakadu: a huge park, more than a third of it wetlands. Famous for its birds and crocodiles, and we saw plenty of both. Cruising the South Alligator river (like Heron Island, named in error as there are no alligators in Australia) and the surrounding billabongs, we saw numerous large salt water crocs (they grow up to 5 meters up here!) as well as spectacular bird life.
Kakadu Crocodile
Currently we are in Adelaide River, near Litchfield National Park. Looking for swimming holes today! We are surrounded by wallabies here.
Wallaby in our front yard.
In other news, Gunung Agung is erupting on Bali, the airport has been closed for days and will probably remain so. As we were scheduled to fly to Bali tomorrow, this presents a problem. With tens of thousands of people stranded on Bali and everyone else trying to shuffle flights, it has actually been a very big problem. Fortunately, here in Adelaide River there is internet access–3 kilometers away at the Post Office. After much ado, we have a new plan. Well, part of a plan. We are going to fly to Jakarta on Friday (via Singapore). That is the plan so far (barely even a concept!). From Jakarta we are hoping to fly to Makassar (on Sulawesi, Indonesia). From Makassar, I have heard it is possible to fly to a small place further afield on Sulawesi (Wangi-wangi island) which is only 4 hours by boat from Wakatobi, which is where we would really like to be. Wish us luck!
