Back from Kakadu

Heyho everybody!

How are you doing out there in the world? We are back from Kakadu and truely had an awesome time over there. We finally ended up taking not only the German Jens with us but another guy, Iggy, an Australian, and so we had our first bush experience with an Aussie! So what was it like? Well, I actually thought there was a lot of nothing in Canada but here it is incredible. And we are not even in the Outback yet. There are basically no towns, just some petrol stations, the road goes on straight forever, everything is very flat... it is really, really empty.

The park itself was awesome. It is mainly flat country as well, covered by forest but not as we know them. The earth is a kind of red, most trees have a white bark and there are a lot of swamps and half-dried rivers. You can feel that the earth is suffering from the dry season. A lot of regulated bushfires are burning right now because people try to stop the large and uncontrolable bushfires at the end of the dry season. So a lot of the forests have no living plants on the ground anymore and the stems of the trees are still black from the burning. It is a hostile environment that makes it even more fascinating how people have survived there for such a long time.

During our hikes we saw a lot of aboriginal paitings dating back a couple of thousands of years proving that people were already living here when the last Ice Age was going on in Europe. It was really intesting to listen so some local guides and when we finally were on the top of a plateau watching the red and golden sunset over a swamp with all kinds of different sandstone formations around us, you could not but feel the spiritual character of the place.

One of our other hikes took us right to the sunbathing place of a crocodile (about 5 minutes after we had started the hike) and it did scare the heck out of us. You may have read in the newspaper that there was a family here last week that scared of a croco which came close to their tent but usually those meetings between crocos and people end up differently. So we were very happy that our croco decided to go and have a bath instead of eating us up. Other than that the meetings with animals were rather friendly. The wallabies (like small kangaroos) are quite cute and the birds here are just so colorful and amazing! By the way, why are all animals in Germany just brown or grey? Here are so many colors, it is much more beautiful. Oh, I forgot another meeting, the mosquitos. Did you know that they go where it is the warmest and that women have a higher body temperature than men? Our three guys were very happy and I was very unhappy to find out about that! Help!!! I got eaten up!!!

Well, now we are back in Darwin, Laurie is our host one more time and becoming more and more of a "father" taking care of his "children" who are setting out for the discover of the wilderness. We have found two more fellow travellers, Jakob (German) and Johanna (German), who will be going down to Alice Springs (1500 km) and Ayers Rock with us tomorrow. By-the-way, although we seem to be travelling with Germans all the time, our headcount is at 15:35 German:French tourist. Who knows why only Germans seem to want to travel with us even though there are so many French here.

Anyhow, we are getting ready to leave and this is the perfect time for a short resume of what we have experienced so far:
- In Singapore, they apparently think people are a little stupid because everything is soooo overregulated and controlled. For example, at every stop of the train, a voice will say: Please mind the platform gap! Or if you cross a yellow line on a train station platform it will say: Carefull, for your own savety you should step back a little. There is a danger of falling onto the rail! ... It appeared a little like Big Brother is watching you.
- Here in Darwin they want to scare you off when crossing the street! When the traffic light for pedestrians turns green, a sound like a pistol shot goes off and then there is the beep, beep for blind people. But why do they have to scare us so much every time a traffic light changes the color?!?
- Drinking water kept in bottles in the car is really not that tasty after having been cooked at 50 degrees celcius all day long.
- It is really mean if you wait for a wonderful cup of tea forever because the campfire won't get going and when it is finally ready after ages it only tastes like ashes because you have forgotten to put a lid on the pot!
- The night sky is just incredible over here in nowhere but the moon is the wrong way around! Wired Southern hemisphere!

Well, I think I have written more than enough, David will already complain again, but I hope I could give you some insight into what our life here looks like. Next time will probably be from Alice Springs!!!

Take care!
Angela

Oh, and because you asked, our cellphone number is 0061-04-166-188-96. However, please keep in mind that when a cellphone company here says they are covering 95% of the population it means that they cover about all the major cities and nothing more. So if you can't reach us, we are probably somewhere out there in the nowhere of Downunder!



Salut tout le monde !


Bon, je profite des quelques minutes qu'il me reste sur internet pour poster un peu ici.

Donc là je suis super en retard et je post ceci quand on est sur le point de partir d'Alice, mais je vais quand même poster en rapport avec ce qu'a écrit Angi, à savoir : Kakadu. (Commencez pas à rigoler, c'est le nom du parc et j'y suis pour rien - au passage, ça se prononce "kakadou"). On est allé là-bas avec 2 mecs qu'on a ramassés à Darwin, histoire de payer moins d'essence : Iggy, un australien baroudeur, et Jens, un Allemand fou. Le parc est absolument magnifique. Les photos parlent pour moi, et j'aimerais bien pouvoir vous en mettre plus (vous pouvez passer régulièrement sur http://ddurand.net/photos pour télécharger des archives que je transferts dès que possible). On a donc commencé par aller voir un coucher de soleil magnifique sur la forêt tropicale, et on a vu qques kangourous (cf photo ci-dessus), et on s'est fait quelques balades aux 4 coins du parc.

Et devinez quoi.... j'ai vu mon premier croco !!! en liberté et de près (un peu trop à mon gout d'ailleurs, j'ai fait un p...... de bond en arrière en le voyant). Les détails : C'était ce qu'on appelle communemment ici un "freshie", c'est à dire un croco d'eau douce, qui n'attaque en général pas les humains (oui bon ok, moi je le sais, mais lui... il le sait lui ??) c'était pas non plus un gros (1m50 environ je dirais, rien à voir avec les 7 ou 8 m que peuvent atteindre les crocos d'eau salée), mais ça fait quand même son petit effet.... d'autant que c'était moi qui ouvrais la marche, et que c'est donc moi qui suis tombé dessus au détour du sentier... j'vous dis pas la trouille... j'espère pouvoir vous poster la photo bientôt (photo de Jens, moi j'ai pas été assez rapide pour sortir l'apn, il avait filé) en attendant, je vous mets le panneau qu'il y avait 100m avant ;-)

Le reste du parc était de toute beauté, et on a passé vraiment 3 bonnes journées. De retour à Darwin on a eu la chance de pouvoir re-loger chez Laurie, et pour le remercier, j'lui ai fait des super crêpes :-) )> Lui il nous a gratifié d'un super chili-con-carne le lendemain, sympa pour garder la ligne tout ça ...

Ensuite, bin on s'est trouvé 2 autres personnes pour partir sur Alice Spring (en plein milieu du désert, pour voir le caillou tout rouge), et devinez quoi : 2 Allemands -_- je sais pas quand je vais bosser mon anglais moi....

La suite bientôt dans le post ci-dessus :-)


edit by david : I can't resit to post a photo of our survival kit in Australia :