It was pretty hot while we were there with the bus sitting at 40 degrees inside all day during the day, and maybe cooling to about 30 - 35 at night. Our fridge wasn't coping too well and was at 18 degrees...
In the interest of our food and our sanity we decided to adandon the upper NT until we came back down with a working air con.
We kayaked Katherine gorge, and it was OK, but still didn't see any freshwater crocs. We saw a pretty cool snake though
Katherine Gorge from a Kayak
Some kind of snake (hard to see in this picture)
On our way back up the gorge we got pulled up by national parks for kayaking in the gorge without a permit.
We honestly didn't know you needed a permit to go kyaking in the gorge, it seemed to be the biggest thing in their day and about 5 guys came down to talk to us and we had to pay $11 each for the privilege of kayaking down their glorified river.
It was nice of them to let us off, but really there wasn't really much special about Katherine gorge, definitely not enough to charge people to paddle around in it.
After that we headed straight to Darwin and picked up a french Canadian hitch-hiker on the way up who had been standing in the heat with no water for an hour already at the bottom end of Kakadu. Poor guy looked like he was about to die. It was really hot...
When we finally arrived in Darwin the temperature was a lot more bearable, it was probably only about 32-35 degrees. We decided the first thing was to get an air conditioner. They don't make them as small as the one in the bus anymore (of course), but we found one a little bigger (And about twice as long) and cut a hole out of the roof and put it in. We couldn't wait to get it started and had it running while we were putting it in.
After that ordeal we went down to the night markets which were awesome (we've been before but they were just as good the second time), but we didn't take a camera. We also went to the Darwin international film festival and watched some international cinema in the deckchair cinema. That was heaps good, we saw a great doco called Tabloid about a beauty queen who allegedly tied down and had her way with her Mormon boyfriend.
It was the funniest documentary I've ever seen, definately worth watching.
The cinema is great too, there were possums running around in the tree's and it was nice being outside in the fresh air. It had a great feel to it and it was pretty cheap too.
We also went and saw the underground fuel tanks under Darwin city and read about Darwin's not so colourful history with all the attacks from Japan. (Apparently Darwin received more bombing than pearl harbour, it's just there wasn't much there to be destroyed. It definitely took some serious damage though).
Deckchair Cinema
Underground fuel tanks (The above ground one's were destroyed in WWII
Typical NT news story
We're having some major difficulties with the old XR 250 at the moment. It's blown it's head gasket and is blowing out heaps of smoke and spraying hot oil all over your leg while you ride it. I reckon this is because these bikes are only air cooled, and probably don't deal with 40 degree heat too well...
I'm gonna have to bear with it for a few weeks and just go to work with engine oil on my leg for a while until pay day and we can get a reliable vehicle.
That would be the day...
The bus is also making some alarming squeaking noises which sounds suspiciously like bearing squeaks.
I sprayed fish oil all under the chassy in the hopes that would miraculously fix whatever's squeaking, but it's never that simple...
Otherwise everything's great. Darwin is a great town, I think we're gonna have a really good time here.
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