The Red Center....continued...again

I realized half way through the last post that I already mucked up the order!  And I didn't do a good enough job explaining where the pictures were from.  People who know Australia will get it from the title, people stateside...maybe not.

Anyways, back in June/July I took a huge 3.5 week trip from Western Australia to Darwin in the Northern Territory and down to Alice Springs in the center.  I was able to get through the Western Australia pictures but couldn't seem to tackle the over 1,000 photos from the Center.  The trip down the Center was 9 days and comprised of three 3-day tours.  3 days in the NT at Kakadu, 3 days to drive through the desert expanse, and 3 days to do the Center and Uluru.  The last Red Center post was the three day drive through the desert.  This one is the 3 days in Kakadu before the Center :)

A synopsis of this leg of the trip: bug bites, waterfalls, and flat tires.

 

Our first swimming spot :)  No idea what it was called, but at least it was warm this day!

Think this is the first "feet in water" photo I took...

Our next stop was an Aboriginal Culture Center. Which was cool, cuz unless you go looking for it, you're not going to learn much about Aboriginal culture

 First, this guy blessed you (near some croc infested waters).  Then his 14 year daughter taught us about weaving.

  They painted us with traditional paints.  They also let us try to play the didjeridoo, of which I have zero ability.

 They also took pics with us, which is pretty unusual (it goes against their culture).  The stick I'm leaning on is supposedly a traditional stick the wives use to convince their husbands to work, lol.

Kangaroo steak dinner.  Yumm.

The first night on tour, in Kakadu during the dry season it rained.  It was on this trip that I discovered I am the "rain goddess."  Which is not necessarily a good thing because it'll become apparent later that I can not actually get the rain to stop.  Anyways, rain=bugs.  I have never been so viciously attacked by bugs in my life.  It was horrible.  I think of when my Dad left the boundary waters a week early because he could not handle the mosquitos, and after this night in Kakadu, I don't blame him.  It was also the first night I actually had to sleep outside in the outback.  It wasn't actually outside, but in little permanent tents with a bench and a pad for sleeping.  Still mightly uncomfortable and subject to mozzies, spiders, snakes, dingos, and other deadly Australian creatures.  Needless to say, I had a hard time sleeping.     I also later learned that by this point I had acquired some lovely bed bugs from the hostel.  Having never had bed bugs, I didn't know what they were.  I thought I had some super powered mozzie bites that just weren't going away.  The itch and pain from bed bug bites is different from mozzie bites and it lasts about two weeks.  It wasn't until the last day of my 9 day journey that a different tour guide told me they were bed bugs and since I had been camping for a week and a half, I was getting new bites every night.  Unhappy.  (Luckily I was able to wash everything I had with me before going back to Sydney so I didn't bring them home with me.)

Thankfully only that first night was bad with the mozzies.  And the waterfalls made up for it.

 Jim Jim Falls.  I really liked climbing over the massive boulders to get to the falls.  But the water was ice cold!  The problem with the giant cliff faces is that they block out the sun.  And it was the Australian winter, though we were in the Top End. 

Its also a little unnerving to swim out to the falls.  While they tell you its safe and there aren't any crocs in the water, there are crocs that inhabit the water in the summer months, so you're just praying that they got em all out.  The water is super deep too and dark, so you're just waiting for something, a croc or lochness to come up from the depths and take you under.  Uplifting thoughts eh?

 Penny, our crazy tour guide.  Also the only female tour guide I had in Oz.

Maguk Falls. I think this one is more picturesque even though its not as impressive.

 By the time we got our 3rd flat tire, we were tired of waiting inside the bus.  Here we're sitting in the middle of road waiting for Pavel, the Polish army man to change our tire.  Because of the off roading, the buses are prone to lose tires.  Penny, our guide broke a record for busting three in one day, none of which were done while off roading, LOL. And oddly enough each flat was a separate tire.

Termite mounds.  Who knew?!

While not fixing flats, we saw a road train!  Scary mo-fo's.  This one only had 3 trailers.  We saw one at a rest stop that had 6 trailers hauling cattle.  And they barrel down the highway at like 70mph.

If this looks familiar, you've watched Crocodile Dundee a few too many times.  Apparently parts of it were filmed on top of that big ole rock.  Story has it that while filming Dundee cracked his whip in a way that was offensive to the Aboriginal people who own the land and allowed them to film there.  So they kicked him and the entire movie production off their land.  So the story goes...

 Our crew at Ubir National Park

Love these photos.  Sad I'm not in it.

Aboriginal rock paintings.  Thousands of years old.  Cool.

Heading back to Darwin (surprisingly far)

Back in Darwin, one of my fav things was their strange signs...

but ain't it the truth!

That night in Darwin was the previously mentioned epic-drink-athon.  It all started because of this:

 I win!  Guess who's drinking Jack and Cokes all night for free?!  Not a grand idea for someone who's drink tolerance was sufficiently diminished for the past few months.

 There was dancing,

 making love to beer pitchers,

 and of course taking photos with absolutely everyone!

And walking back to the hostel that night we all giggled at this little sign.  Well not the Australians, they didn't see what was so funny.  Speedo=speedometer.  American speedo=budgy smuggler.  I don't know why but thats what they call them.