Roadtrip Diary

Back on the road blasting the music at top volume and waving at every car we pass the time goes very quickly and we are all extremely shocked at how soon we see the ‘welcome to Kakadu national park’ sign. I pull over and we all jump out of the car and run to the sign ready to pose next to it, after carefully positioning the camera on a rock and setting the timer we all put on our cheesiest smiles, now we have arrived we are even more excited to get into the park and start our adventure, we continued to Jabiru, the 3 girls in the back singing out of the windows and sun roof and Alice next to me juggling between 5 ipods to make sure we constantly have cheesy boy and girl band music blaring out of the speakers.

We made our next stop at Ubirr, after the short walk to the top the first thing that struck all of us was how green everything looked, we were expecting to see nothing but red dust and dry trees, it took us all by surprise.

We then made our way to the Gunwarrdehwarrde lookout, which was a short walk to the top where we watched the sunset and were all extremely excited to see our very first Kangaroo, which we named Bounce and we were very tempted to try and take him with us on the rest of our trip.

After our first day of sight seeing we were exhausted, probably because of all the excitement and singing. So we headed back to our van (or our home for the next 3 days which we had named Rob) and we set off for our first ever night bush camping. We decided to camp in the traditional way, we made a fire and cooked corn over it, sang songs and toasted marsh mellows, all we needed was a guitar and it would have been like a scene from a country and western film.

Day 2

The next day we were back on the road by 6am, with Jack Johnson quietly filling the car to wake us all up gently. We started our day at the Gubara Pools watching the sunrise whilst we ate our breakfast, before taking a scenic walk past the stream and to the pools. This was a beautiful spot we were able to swim and relax without any disturbance from anyone.

By the time we were back on the road we were more than ready to change the music back up to full volume and continue our glorious singing, as we made our way to Gunlom and we began the two hour journey down the road that we had been warned was extremely bumpy the singing became harder due to our vibrating voice boxes. We stopped off on the way to Gunlom at Yurmikmik and we did a very short walk which led to beautiful views, but we were all so excited to get to Gunlom that we pretty much ran back to the van to continue the journey.

When we arrived at the Gunlom campsite we set up our tents and set off on the walk to what ended up being everyone’s favourite spot for the whole trip, the minor climb up to the top was completely worth it, not only for the views but for the glorious plunge pools and waterfalls. My favourite plunge pool ran over the edge of a cliff and you could actually sit on the edge whilst still in the pool and see a spectacular view beneath you, we decided to stay for sunset, definitely the right decision.

Day 3

Waking up on the final day was still just as exciting but also slightly sad because we all knew that it was our final day and that not only was it the end of our adventure and sightseeing but that it was nearly time to say bye to each other, you can’t help but become close and bond when all five of you are doing everything together for the whole trip. To begin our final day we made our way to the Moline Rock Hole, this was the spot that we had all been most excited about, when we got there it was exactly what we imagined the ten minute drive over the rocky road surface was completely worth it. We arrived at the waterfall and we were the only ones there, we took full advantage of this swimming, jumping off rocks and taking pictures, we found it very hard to leave. When we managed to tear ourselves away we made our way out of Kakadu and set off towards Litchfield.

We had one planned stop on they way, one that I could not contain my excitement about. We stopped at the Adelaide River Inn to see the famous Charlie the buffalo from Crocodile Dundee, who has been stuffed and placed on the bar. Being a massive Crocodile Dundee fan from being very little I couldn’t wait to see it, after I got about 200  photos and lived my childhood dream we continued towards Litchfield.

Arriving in Litchfield you could instantly see the difference between it and Kakadu, Litchfield had a much more tropical feel too it. We had the afternoon in the park and we managed to see Florence falls and Wangi Falls, Wangi was everyone’s favourite it was just disappointing that we couldn’t swim because of crocodiles, but it had an amazing walk into a treetop lookout which to get to you had to walk through a very tropical setting, it was amazing the difference between the two parks and the short distance they are away from each other.

We then began the dreaded journey back home, none of us wanted to leave, we had had so much fun that we weren’t ready to go back. We spent the whole journey back to Darwin talking about how much fun we had had and what we were going to do that night. We rounded the trip off perfectly with a few drinks in a pub in Darwin where we looked over photos and vowed to visit each other in our home countries. The best part of this trip was not only what I saw but who I met, I now have 4 different countries around the globe to visit all with free accommodation, what a bonus!!