Corbett`s Travels
The World Needs Re-exploring
The Australian Outback, days 1-4
Days 1-4
The Australian Outback 2007
Monday 27th August
Woke to a very beautiful day in 
alight with the idea of adventure, giant flat landscapes, deadly creatures, Aboriginal communities and a real sense of exploring which is why I was so surprised that many Australians I know have yet to venture into what is the heartland of their country but, having said that, I have seen more of Australia than I have of England.
After a comfortable five hour flight over the Australian heartland we (my girlfriend Chell and I) touched down in
Where are my sunglasses? Ah for fuck sake I’ve left them in the taxi!
Tuesday 28th August
Day One
Woke at 8am feeling pretty good, I had slept much better than I thought I was going to and was eager to get the adventure started so we got up and headed for the shower. Once dressed we had a look around the hostel which certainly wasn’t as good as advertised on the internet but still pretty decent. It seemed really chilled out and best of all there was a gorgeous pool out the back surrounded by palm trees, ah I love the hostel life! We headed out into the already hot sun in search of breakfast. Within minutes I was sweating, clearly showing that I wasn’t from this neck of the woods. We walked up the main street lined with hostels and bars, it was very quiet and nowhere near as big as I thought it would be. In England this would be a small town, if that, yet Darwin is a city. We found a lovely little café with air conditioning and discussed the plan for the day. Today was all about finding our bearings, seeing what’s on and adjusting to the humidity. After breakfast I bought some new sunglasses to replace the ones I had left in the taxi last night and also picked up a map. We saw that down by the Esplanade was what looked on the map like a path along the beach from one end of town to the other that led right up close to where our hostel was, however it turned into a bit of a comedy sketch. We got down onto what was a deserted beach, not a nice beach as it was covered in rocks. We decided to walk for a few kilometres and soon realised that was a mistake, the sand turned into thick mud, our feet disappeared ankle deep under every step, the map showed that you can only access the beach from each end as a steep hill covered in thick bush blocks the way to the main Esplanade so we just carried on trying to get to the other end. It was midday and the sun was beating down hard, mud had splashed up our legs and we looked a mess. Eventually we decided to fight our way up through the trees and get up onto the Esplanade. After a lot of fighting with branches and a lot of swearing we made it through, to be greeted by a lovely park and people picnicking, the looks we got were hilarious, both covered in thick mud, sweat dripping from us, carrying two mud balls in our hands which were actually our flip flops, so it was back to the hostel via the normal path. Once refreshed, with the second shower of the day, we returned to the Esplanade to enjoy a picnic in the shade of a tree. They have done a really good job here with its lush green grass and beautiful views looking out over the harbour, it’s a terrific spot which seemed very popular with people on their lunch break. With our stomachs full we returned to the hostel and spent the afternoon sunbathing by the pool. Travel is a tough business. In the evening, after our third shower of the day, we ventured out and enjoyed a terrific fish and chips dinner in town before going in search of a place called the ’Deck Chair Cinema’. A large screen in a beautiful spot by the water surrounded by trees with a club house that consisted of a small bar and toilets. Sitting in our comfy deckchairs, we watched the sun, glowing orange, set over the harbour and then the movie began. A wonderful Swedish film called ‘As it is in Heaven’, was so good it kept my eyes from wandering up to view the magnificent blanket of stars above, lots of mosquito repellent kept the bugs away on what was a wonderful evening!-thumb.png)
Wednesday 29th August
Day Two
Darwin is very small and yesterday we saw a good amount of the centre so this morning we stocked up on water and rented a couple of bikes from the hostel for $25 each. We rode up the coast in the direction of Mindil beach, it was a scorching morning but we had definitely acclimatised a little to the weather so that didn’t put us off cycling, it was in fact very refreshing 
being out on the bikes, exploring the beautiful coast line. Our first stop was at a very interesting museum & art gallery of the Northern Territory. They had a splendid part on ’Cyclone Tracy’ which was a real natural disaster. Tracy built up over Christmas Eve 1974, by 3.05am the winds had reached around 280km/h. 66 people lost their lives and the destruction was horrific, of Darwin’s 11,200 houses, close to 60% were destroyed and only 400 survived relatively intact. There were a lot of pictures of the event before and after, there was also a small room we went into that was playing a recording of the sound someone had made whilst in there house as the cyclone hit and my god it must have been frightening, the noise was incredible and you can imagine the power! Another exhibition that caught my eye was a story about a crocodile called ’Sweetheart’, I thought it was a funny name to call an aggressive 5.1m croc that enjoyed attacking fishing boats. In the 1970’s they decided to catch him and relocate him but unfortunately in the process a big log got caught up in the net they were capturing him in and sadly he drowned, however he does have an after life, being on display in the museum. -thumb.png)
After some lunch in the museum café, which was more like a restaurant, and well over priced by the way, we jumped back on the bikes and headed further up the coast to Lake Alexander. A man made salt water lake for swimming as having a dip off one of Darwin’s beaches is not really advisable due to the water being full of box jellyfish and if they don’t get you the crocs will. We had the lake pretty much to ourselves, Chell sunbathed while I splashed about like an Englishman on holiday but all the time in the water I couldn’t help but wonder if one of ’Sweethearts’ relatives was close by.
Hidden away in East Point Reserve further up the coast we finished our afternoon off at the Darwin Wartime Museum. It is devoted to Darwin’s WWII experiences, it’s small and well presented in a gorgeous setting. We read up on the Japanese bombing and walked around viewing the many old vehicles and weapons left over. When I think of WWII I always think of Europe or the battle in the Pacific but even little Darwin was affected. People, when they think of Australia, besides the Aboriginal history of course, don’t really believe there is anything that remarkable about the Aussie past so whilst here don’t really pay much attention to it but travelling through this area I realise it’s the local history that is important, I’m finding all sorts of facts and fascinating stories that, to me, are very appealing.
Evening, we relaxed over a nice dinner after our outing on the bikes and then spent some time sending e-mails home from an internet café. We finished off the night sitting under some palm trees with a nice bottle of white wine.
Day Three
Woke nice and early to splendid sunshine. Did some washing and then spent a few hours in the pool enjoying the morning air. Once showered and dressed, we found a bus that took us out to ’Crocodylus Park’ about 20kms out of town in search of a crocodile, I could hardly come to the 
Northern Territory and not see one of these prehistoric creatures in the flesh, I admit these are behind fences but I prefer to meet them this way than come face to face in the wild. Crocodylus is actually a breeding farm and research centre, three out of the top five crocodile experts in the world work here. We joined a small group and followed the keeper as he went around to feed these magnificent animals, the first small lake we came to was a busy little area of sunbathing young crocs whose future is destined for the handbag industry, beautiful looking animals that look even more amazing up close. We moved onto the breeding pens where they keep the big males and by God they are big, easily five metres in length and as wide as a bus, well not that wide but you get my point. The keeper introduced us to them, each croc had a pen to himself and each had a name, my favourite killer croc was called Harold which is a lovely name for a prehistoric killing machine. The keeper told us many facts about the crocs whilst he dangled meat over the side, the massive creature rose from the water and slammed its giant powerful jaws around the dead chicken. Some of the facts were rather alarming, like Harold here could rip your arm or leg off in a second, even more alarming was that not only the reason you shouldn’t swim in the sea here in Darwin because of the box jellyfish but also because every other day they pull a crocodile out of the harbour, that’s 180 a year, he went on to suggest that any place where there is water in the Northern Territory there is a good chance a croc will be close by so best to stay out, well that’s just bloody marvellous knowing that yesterday I was splashing around in a murky lake basically handing out pasty British flesh on a plate! Before we left we got a chance to hold a one year old croc which was terrific, even this little guy had his jaw taped shut so he wouldn’t take a finger or two, like I said, lovely creatures.
Evening, we strolled around the Mindil beach sunset market which is a twice weekly event that-thumb.png)
is a bit of a tradition, very popular with the tourists as you can stroll around buying any sort of hand made crafts, take in the smells of the food stalls which include Thai, Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Brazilian, Greek and many more before sitting down on the beach with a glass of wine to watch as the sun sets over another beautiful day.
Friday 31st August
Day Four
I was in the shower at
Tour vans were already out and about, passing us whilst on their way to pick up others around town, one van caught my eye as it had a young driver who had the face of the joker and the guide next to him was a spitting image of outlaw Ned Kelly. I made the comment to Chell that I’m glad we weren’t on that bus, further up the road I saw it turn around and come back our way, you have to be kidding! Ned Kelly wearing no shoes got out and greeted us, his actual name is Brad and the joker was Marchie. We loaded up and set off around
Our first stop was 111kms down the highway from
The highlight of the morning though was coming face to face with the actual buffalo from the film ’Crocodile Dundee’, the one where Dundee does that thing with his hand to hypnotize it, I decided to have a go myself and it worked, by God it worked. It didn’t even blink at me but to be fair it was standing on top of the bar and quite dead. The buffalo is actually called Charlie and sadly died back in 2002, being a famous buffalo they decided to stuff him and put him up on the bar where he has stood proudly ever since.
A few hours later we drove into Katherine, the biggest town between
Early afternoon, after setting up camp on a secluded hill just outside the town, we made our way down to Katherine Gorge. Chell and I slapped on plenty of sun cream and donned our life jackets. Neither of us had been canoeing before so it was a new experience for both of us and what a spectacular place to try it. Most of our fellow travellers hired canoes as well, the plan was to canoe up stream to the end of the first gorge where we were told there was a small beautiful beach where we could relax and have a swim, I thought this was a little strange though as earlier we were told to stay away from the sides of the gorge as there are lots of crocodile nests and I could also see from where I was standing a very big crocodile trap down by the waters edge, but I was assured that these crocs don’t pose a threat and would only attack us if we went near their nests, well that’s all right then, I mean now I wasn’t bothered at all that we were about to canoe through crocodile infested waters and then take a dip at the end.
We pushed off from the side and found out there is a knack to canoeing, we very quickly started-thumb.png)
going around in circles and then crashed into the bank. After a moment of swearing at each other we managed to get going up stream. The current was actually very strong which made it harder to concentrate on the dramatic beauty of the gorge.It was so peaceful, the only noise was from the paddles in the water and the odd bit of cursing when we went off course and headed for the croc nests, The gorge walls were a spectacular red colour with small beaches and trees at the base.
After about forty five minutes of hard paddling we reached the end of the first gorge and pulled the canoe up onto the lovely white sandy beach, we were joined by the others who all managed to make it without having to fight off a croc. It was the most amazing place to relax and have a swim, it was like you see in the movies being out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by amazing natural beauty with the sun beating down whilst gently swimming in the beautiful cool water, what an experience!
Evening, back at camp, we all sat around enjoying a very tasty meal that Brad had cooked up for us all. There was a lot of getting to know each other chat which was really nice, we spent a lot time getting to know the only other English person called Amanda who is from Nottingham which is where Chell and I have moved to since returning to the UK, a nice girl, and in fact she will shortly be moving into our apartment with us in Nottingham.
It had been a long but terrific day, so far it had been living up to my expectations which to be fair are very high indeed, we finished the night off with some star gazing and enjoyed a beer around the open fire, ah it’s a tough life.
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Days 1-4
