The Top End, Northern Territory, Australia

The Top End of Australia, a remote area which feels as though it is detached from the rest of the country. Darwin, Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks were the beginning of what was to be a fun, girlie road trip across the centre of Australia for Rebecca and I.

Back before I even left the UK, Rebecca had agreed to travel from Darwin to Alice Springs, and across to Ayers Rock with me. So, after much planning on how we were going to do it, we met in Darwin (Bec flying from Melbourne, her hometown and me flying in from Cairns where I had just spent 6 weeks travelling up the east coast).

Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, a small compact city but a city nevertheless, reeling in history from WWII, Japanese bombings larger than Pearl Harbour, to devastating cyclones (Cyclone Tracey) in 1974. Before hitting the nearby (1 hour and 3 hours respectively) national parks, we spent a day in Darwin, exploring the CBD, harbour, government buildings and then Cullen Bay (a 25 minute walk out of town) for dinner. Darwin was our first of many encounters with the Aboriginal culture, which for us was quite a culture shock and literally like being in a country that certainly was not Australia.

One of the highlights of being in Darwin and this part of the country especially in the wet season, was the massive lightening strikes that would light up the whole sky in a distant thunder storm miles away. A good introduction to the Top End, however, with not much going on in Darwin we were glad to be going on tour to check out the much talked about National Parks; Kakadu and Litchfield.

First up was Kakadu, one of Australia's greatest national parks with up to 20,000km of land. A world heritage listing, Kakadu is known for its ecological and cultural heritage. Much of Kakadu is Aboriginal land where the Aboriginal people have lived in the parklands between 20 & 50,000 years. Evidence of this could be seen on the rocks where Dreamtime stories were drawn and maintained on the sandstone throughout the park.

Being here in wet season meant that the next 2 days of exploration would be full of waterfalls and rock pools, some of which were gladly used as swimming spots - with 35C+ heat, we were always pleased to come across one of these. Our first morning on tour, we began to learn about the Aboriginal culture. We were taken to the Northern beaches of Darwin and welcomed to their land by washing our hands and faces in the sea, taught how to throw spears to hunt kangaroos and other animals for food, to play the didgeridoo and finally how to make string, which ended up as pretty necklaces with shells from the beach as the pendant.

A quick stop at the Adelaide River to check out some feisty crocodiles, and the it was off to Kakadu, 3 hours away. After a full on cultural day at the park, we set up camp, cooked ourselves dinner and had an early night - the next day was an early start with a 14km walk around the park to learn about the ecological side of it. The walk itself was relatively easy, the only difficult part of it was the heat - at over 40C walking with no shade.

Our walk took us to Kurrandie Falls, a beautiful water hole surrounded by large boulders and water good enough to swim in and fill up our water bottles. Another walk with us clambering over rocks brought us to Motor Car Falls another scenic stop where we grateful for another swim and a spot of lunch. Our last part of the walk, we found ourselves dodging a bush fire, but luckily this was a controlled one where they were burning off vegetation as part of the nutrition cycle to keep the forest going.

Last stop was at Boulder Falls, a small rock pool surrounded with massive boulders where we stopped, sat under the waterfall and rested our tired limbs. Kakadu is a stunning park with lots of ground to cover, beautiful wildlife and birds, green, lush scenery and this was just in the wet season. Apparently in the dry season the park is completely different with the highlights being completely different. Who knows, if we find ourselves back in this area of Australia again maybe we'll time it for the dry season.

After 2 days at Kakadu we moved onto Litchfield National Park, a smaller park without a world heritage listing however, equally as good. Litchfield is known for its waterfall and so from the out set we knew we were in for a relaxing day, hopping from one waterfall to another.

Before that though, we did a quick stop a the magnetic termite mounds, these are humongous mounds that these tiny little creatures build for their homes (you'll have to see the photos to believe the size of them). We then moved onto our first swimming spot, Florence Falls - surrounded with monsoon forest and full of aquatic life (Rebecca brought her goggles so that we could check it out for crocs!). The perfect start to a very hot day.

A lunch stop near some other waterfalls, Becs and I were feeling a little energetic and took ourselves on a 1.6km walk which took us up & around the waterfalls, through rainforest (we were walking and stamping our feet hoping to scare of any snakes that wanted to make an appearance). The views at the top of the falls were amazing and full of forestry as far as the eye could see. We made it back to the group and quickly discovered that our guide didn't even realised we were gone, and all the lunch had been eaten by the rest of the group!! So, much for keeping a head count! We managed to scramble a sandwich from another group and we rather pleased that we did the walk as it was definitely the highlight of our Top End experience.

Wangi Falls is a no-go area for swimming, and upon arrival we immediately understood why. Just under the waterfalls a lone crocodile was swimming happily searching for its dinner. Our guide was baffled by its behaviour and had never seen a croc in this areas - a rare sight and we were lucky to have witnessed it. A few more rock pools and swimming opportunities and our day at Litchfield was over, just a quick ice cream stop on the way back to Darwin and we had experienced another natural beauty at the Top End of the NT.

Tours finished, we now had to physc ourselves up for our own big adventure - the big self drive from Darwin to Alice Springs....