Kakadu and busy days in Darwin...

I've been trekking. Not that you'd know from my waistline - which is roughly growing from a muffin-top into a mushroom...

Yes, I braved the wilds and went to Kakadu national park for three days. Sleeping in the bush, hunting for spiders, seeing snakes - I've done it all.

I joined a tour - an expensive but easy option for getting to see and do everything and learn all about the nature and history and so on. And so, in Indiana Jones get up, I took to the road with Kakadu 4wd safaris accompanied by Andy, our tour guide, Young Oli (who came to be known by me as Princess), a Danish couple Louisa and Thomas and a family of five from Somerset.

The tour began with a jumping croc cruise on the Adelaide River. We were huddled intoa 'boat' which was basically a tin can with a few rails around the outside and a small engine on the back...

Almost immediately afer we had left the jetty, we began to see crocs. Crocodiles are much more dangerous than alligators, we were told, and the saltwater variery are particularly deadly. And hungry. And we were literally surrounded by the beasts.

Curious reptiles, at the sound of a splash, they will immediately be over to investigate their next meal. Large ones will happily drag a horse or a buffalo into the murky depths of the river. They would have happily got their mouth around my leg, or arm.

As we dangled small pieces of meat over the edge on a pole, we could hear the massive power of their jaws as they chomped at it - lifting themselves high out of the water to feed.

The largest we saw was Hannibal - a massive croc well over the length of our boat - and around 8m long. He is estimated to be about 80 years old and is as gnarled and fearsome looking as a dragon.

We were so close to them as they swam around us and it was just terrifying. They would tear you apart in seconds.

Then it was off to Kakadu. We stopped at Maguk (Barramundi Gorge), a place where a pretty waterfall ran between stone cliffs and surrounded by jungle. Very beautiful. Andy showed us plants like the milkwood tree which is an antiseptic and which he treated my work-related cuts with and stopped them becoming tropical ulcers.

We swam in the gorge (only freshwater crocs here!) and then headed for Jim Jim billabong where we set up our tents, built a campfire and cooked roast chook and veggies on the fire. Then it was time to go looking for bugs - shining our torches on the ground to see wolf spiders, cane toads and even look for crocs down at the billabong edge before listening to Andy play the didge and hearing a dreamtime Aboriginal story around the fire.

Sleep saw me thrashing around in my sleeping bag escaping the crocs and spiders...

We rose just before sunrise and prepared for a long walk - we had to climb to the top of Jim Jim falls on the Arnhem plateau.




The falls crash over 150m of cliff face into deep plunge pool. It is only accessible during the dry winter season and by the time we arrived, there was not even a trickle fallling down the cliff. However, the 16km walk up steep cliffs, through savannah woodlands, over the rocky plateau and swimming in billabongs and across (what during the wet season is) river beds was well worth the amazing view. We looked down at the top of Jim Jim from above and then climbed down to the top of the falls where we could swim in the freezing and deep pool.






We lay on the rocks where the water pounds in summer and peeked over the edge to the people swimming in the pool far, far below.

Unfortunately, Louisa had sprained her ankle at the start of the walk but soldiered on slowly. By the end of the day she was half-walking, half being carried by Thomas and so it was dark by the time we crossed the riverbed at the base of the falls and made our way back to the car. It was a tough day's walk anyway.

Driving back along the rocky 4x4 track back to camp, we saw an olive python. Througout the day, Andy had shown us bushtucker and how to eat it including large ants with green bums - the green being a citrusy-flavoured acid.

Our third day was spent visiting Yellow water billabong (more crocs), visiting some rock art sites and learning about Aboriginal history and swimming in a billabong - one of the view guarenteed not to have salties in it.

The whole trip was great but Kakadu is massive and we only saw a small part of it. Jim Jim aside, I felt it lacked the grandeur of Karinjini or Kalberri or the grace of Katherine gorge. Most of the drives, we just saw woodlands stretching for miles and the billabongs, while teeming with things for twitchers and even croc-spotters, did sort of look like large ponds.

Kakadu aside, I've been working all the hours I can in Monty's cafe in Darwin centre and at Discovery nightclub and Lost Ark bar. I loved this bar job - chatting to customers, having a laugh with the staff and bands that play, hearin great music and being bought drinks... but it has killed me and meant I've spent little time with the girls.

Sad, because I have now left Darwin. I spent 24 hours on a bus to Alice Springs after a final farewell party on Mindil Beach with Jemma, Jen, Jen, Timmy, Dave, Gary, Tom and so on before partying at the Lost Arc.

Now, I'm off on my own again - and ready for my next adventure. Uluru....

Sunny Darwin, rainy Gloucester

My parents have no power or drinking water and my friends are stranded in their homes in Gloucester... meanwhile I bask in 32C heat in Darwin. It's summer in England - winter in Oz...

Hmm going home suddenly seems so tempting. Of course, I'm missing out on the journalistic fun of it all and the cameraderie and solidarity of the Blitz spirit the brits usually display.

Normally, the people of Gloucester would be punching each other outside Liquid, moaning about everything and pushing their babies to their mums house on the way to school...

Instead, they are cheering the arrival of the army, getting their local rag delivered by canoe (seriously) and not taking showers.

Some of the pictures of the floods are crazy but if you will build half a city the flood plain of the River Severn... and as my dad put into perspective - 200 people were killed in floods recently in China but people getting their Barretts platforms a little wet in Gloucester are going mad.

Here in Darwin life is all about making enough cash to avoid having to return to Gloucester until December. So I'm working a cafe job, a nightclub job and doing casual events waitressing seven days a week.

Hours off (those rare ones) involve resting, sleeping, the odd moment of sunbathing or drinking.

English Jen's birthday was celebrated by us dressing as pirates and hitting the 'city'. Darwin is a large country town with two decent clubs and isn't a dissimilar size to the 'city' of Gloucester...

And like my hometown, you don't want to swim in the water here. Crocs to worry about in one city and skin-scalding pollution in the other.

The centre consists of a couple of supermarkets, about two fashion shops, a few pharmacys and eateries and souvenir shops.

But it has a lovely laid-back atmosphere, nice architecture and friendly people. There are swimming pools everywhere due to the intense heat, a deckchair cinema, wonderful markets twice a week by the beach. Last week, we went to watch the sunset on Mindil beach and wandered the markets where you can buy every kind of food under the sun and all kinds of trinkets.

So I may not be a hotshot journo covering the water crisis in Gloucester, but at least I'm warm. And dry.