Chasing Summer –

November 2-3rd

I have been to Australia twice before, but I have never been this far north to Darwin. On this cruise, we have Darwin on the way into the region and will be leaving by going through Darwin again. Because of this, I felt OK not exploring the city this time and focusing on the surrounding areas.

I was a little bit spoiled because one of our fellow passenger sisters rented a car and drove a bunch of us around. Unlike a lot of North America, on Sundays, like when we arrived, not much is open in Darwin. Even on Monday, it’s hard to find things open.

Because we were entering a new country, our customs and immigration process took quite some time. Australia is particularly picky about health and safety. Negotiations had gone on for months between Australian authorities and the cats that we have on board. We have five different residents who have at least one pet cat. Normally, cats would have to be quarantined for 10 days upon entry, or the boat can’t go in. Our situation is a new one, and the Australian authorities agreed to classify the cats as ship animals, and they needed to be quarantined below deck in a biohazard area and would be checked daily by security. This, of course, is not free, and our pet owners are paying a hefty $50 per cat per day, that are spent in Australia.

They also looked at our medical logs, and anyone who had visited the doctor in the past month needed to be verified as healthy by Australia’s own people before anyone could even think of leaving the ship. We arrived at approximately 10, and it took two hours to begin disembarkation. Luckily, we all made it through, and we passed our inspections, so next time it should be relatively painless.

We are at the very beginning of the wet season here in northern Australia. Days are typically hot and humid with storms in the late afternoons. We set off to go and watch some leaping crocodiles.

It has been observed that saltwater crocodiles will sometimes jump to snatch low-flying birds out of the air. This behavior has become a tourist attraction with boats taking us up and down the Adelaide River and holding poles with meat attached to the end over the sides to entice the crocodiles to jump into the air. This costs 55Aus.

The area where this occurs is about an hour’s drive outside of Darwin, and the Adelaide River is a brown, murky river that can hide the crocodiles if they are submerged. I compared us to the Ice Cream Truck, as the crocodiles know that this boat means snacks. They will come out if they are hungry when we go by. We saw several smaller crocodiles and also some of the birds, including goshawks.

After the crocodile tour, we went about five minutes by car to a lookout viewing point, Windows on the Wetlands Visitor Centre, where we could see the entire area. It is beautiful. On our way there, we passed one smaller lake that had thousands of ducks teeming on the shore.

On our way back, we stopped at Humpty Doo Hotel. I love the names of some of the places in Australia. This is a typical type of outback Darwin bar, where we sampled the Great Northern brew. The Great Northern Brewery is the most popular beer in Australia.

We then made our way to Berry Springs Tavern. On our way there, the rains began and the wind picked up. Only a few short minutes before we arrived, a small tornado had gone through the area and knocked over a large cow statue.

Here we had lunch of Sunday dinner and a savoury pie. This pie was chicken, mushroom, pepper, and cheese, not my favorite. From there, we headed back into Darwin, where we stopped to watch the sunset.

On the beach, there was a sign stating that swimming was not allowed because crocodiles and stingers are present year-round in that area. It seems like just about everything is trying to kill you in Australia.

On our second day, we took a drive out to Litchfield National Park. Here, there are several waterfalls as well as rock holes that people can swim in.

Our first stop was a termite city. Here are the termites’ homes are built very tall, and there is a field that has dozens of these apartment complex homes of termites. It makes for an interesting picture, but I do worry for the trees in the area.

As we drove along, we could see evidence of past fires and wallabies hopping about in the bush. They were very difficult to try and get a picture of as we were driving fast, and they were small. We visited several waterfalls, and there are many large bats in the region that we could see hanging from the trees.

We eventually ended up at our Wangi Waterfall, where we were going to swim. Again, there are warnings about crocodile safety.

Needless to say, none of us swam very far into the water in our crocodile paranoia. As we were leaving, two large tourist buses of people had just arrived, and I’m glad we were getting out of there, although they definitely would have scared any crocodiles away. There was nothing to eat or drink out in this park, so people needed to pre-plan and bring their own things. Luckily, our driver had brought some mango and other snacks with her.

We made our way back to Darwin, and it took about an hour and a half to drive. Next time we stop in, I will spend more time exploring the city itself, but it was an amazing two days before we head to Cairns.