It is three thousand and twenty eight kilometres from Adelaide, my home town, to Darwin right through the centre of Australia. To put that into perspective if you were driving at 100km an hour (62mph) and you drove non-stop around the clock it would take thirty hours to get there. That's with no stops. Typically it's a 3-4 day drive though, with stops. It's roughly the same distance, give or take a few kilometers, as driving from Monaco to Moscow is. Fortunately we flew there which didn't take anywhere near that long. It's worth the trip too. The main image here was taken from Mindil Beach just out of Darwin City.

The map to the right shows Australia and the driving route from Adelaide to Darwin which runs right through Alice Springs. I've done the drive and didn't mind it but there's not much in between. Well, there's nothing at all really; Just a two lane bitumen road and great expanses of nothing. Due to its remoteness Darwin is not visited as much as the other capital cities and to be honest it's probably not everyone's thing. It's more of a country town than a city and is more about nature than most cities are. We love it though and we had an amazing time there.

One of the attractions of the area is Katherine Gorge which is pictured here. We took a cruise and in the second image you can see one of the cruise boats. It's interesting because in the wet season (summer) the water you see rises to completely cover the cliffs you see in the images. They are a long way up there (compare the size of the boat for perspective.) Obviously the area is not accessible in the wet season. In fact, Darwin pretty much shuts down in the wet season due to the amount of rain that falls and fierce storms. It's brutal!

People in Darwin are really friendly, it's a very laid back and chilled-out lifestyle there; Perfect for relaxing and come the evening that's what people do. We headed over to the night markets at Mindil Beach to check out all things weird and wonderful and of course to sample some of the amazing foods on offer. It's a tradition to grab some food (we had paella), and head out onto the beach to watch the sunset. It's spectacular. The image here was taken there as the sun set hence the orange glow on our skin. It was pretty awesome watching the sunset, music from the markets behind us and the sound of the waves. Welcome to Darwin.

Of course there's many other things to do in Darwin. In the images below you can see the wave pool (man made waves) which was very cool! The thing is that Darwin, in fact the entire Top End of Australia is infested with crocodiles. Big-ass crocodiles that will eat your ass for dinner! That means swimming in anything other than a swimming pool is risky. The Salt Water crocodile is just as comfortable in sea water as it is in fresh water and so nowhere is safe. Only idiots and American tourists take the risk. The second image is a water hole we swam in which was, purportedly, crocodile free.

You see, in the wet season the waterholes all join together due to the intense rainfall and flooding allowing the crocodiles to move about between them. When the wet season water drops many crocodiles get trapped in the water holes. The rangers come along and shoot them and then declare the water hole safe to swim in. A simple Northern Territory solution.

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Speaking of crocodiles...I photographed these two whilst on a cruise on the Adelaide River. (Not to be confused with the Adelaide in which I live). These beasts grow to some 6.5 metres in length, are stealthy hunters and with 9 tonnes of clamping pressure in their jaws are formidable predators. Taking a swim anywhere in these parts is not going to end well generally. I suggest to any tourist that they do this cruise as it's one of the only ways to see these dinosaurs in their own environment safely.

Whilst in Darwin we ran into a couple of friends who were there at the same time. We had headed over to the tourist attraction Crocosaurus Cove which is right in the centre of Darwin. They have all sorts of cool stuff there and a lot of live crocodiles.

One of their attractions is the cage of death which is Australia's only crocodile dive experience. You can see it here with my mate and his girl in there. You get in and they lower it into the water with the crocodile. Remember, these things are primal and he knew there was food in the perspex tank. He kept turning the tank with his nose to get to the open slits. He'd peer through and you could see him thinking, "how can I get in and rip these assholes apart." Fortunately for my mate he survived. He said it was an amazing experience...I decided to take his word for it.

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We had a good time at croc cove and even bought a souvenir from there. We grabbed a fluffy crocodile back pack which we sent to our niece @smallsteps in Finland. I think my brother @tarazkp has some pictures of her with it. I don't want to post any as she is not my child. Maybe he will sometime.

Whilst in Darwin we did a war tour. Darwin was bombed by the Japanese over 100 times and other parts of the Northern Territory as well. The Darwin coastline was dotted with gun emplacements, battery's, armoury's and bunkers. In World War Two the harbour was full of war ships also. On 19 February 1942 242 Japanese planes (over two waves) attacked the harbour bombing it and the surrounding town including the two airfields very severely with the loss of many ships and lives as well. There is still plenty of evidence of the bombings and there's a thriving tourist-trade conducting tours which I would recommend are worth doing. The one we went on also showed us the submarine net. It was raised to protect the harbour against submarine attack and lowered to allow allied shipping to pass through. It's a pretty interesting engineering feat to be honest, spanning the entire entrance to the harbour.

I'll have to do a separate post about the war history of the place as there's so much to write.

We ate a lot in Darwin. Eating is good. It's easy to do so in Darwin as there are so many great options. We ate fish and chips, paella on the beach, steaks, burgers and everything in between. We tend not to go in for the fancy places preferring different experiences and no trip to Darwin would be complete without a beer and burger at the Humpty Doo Hotel. This hotel is quintessentially outback and at first glance looks like somewhere you'd be best to avoid but make the effort, trust me. It's friendly and the food is awesome! Stop in for a beer and some food, you'll be made welcome and you will not regret it.

The images below show the Humpty Doo Hotel and a sample of their fine fare. The other two images below show another way to combine Darwin and food together...

...A cruise on the ocean to watch the sunset and observe the city of Darwin at night. Awesome. This cruise served us drinks and a whole lot of locally sourced foods. It was on a catermaran, a big one, with about 15 or so others. The weather was perfect and my girl looked that way too, as always.

It's difficult to sum up the trip in a short post but hopefully you can get an idea of what it's like from what I have written and my photos. It's a special sort of place, sure, it's a long way from anywhere and is probably not on the tourist trail for most because of that. However it's worth the effort and will give visitors a different sense of what Australia really is all about. It's such a diverse country and is full of loads of different characters, myself included. if you visit you really have to get away from the cities to understand the place and it's people. Darwin, Northern Territory (NT), Australia...Get your ass there!

If you stuck with me all the way through I want to thank you. And if you didn't well, I could say all sorts of stuff about you and you'd never know. But I won't.