Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

Once a jolly swag man camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a collibah tree
And he was scared as he saw the water start to swamp his tent
We need to get out of here quickly!

We've been on a 2 day camping trip to Kakadu national park. Famous for waterfalls, camping, flat land and crocodiles.

Our day started with a 6am pick-up. Just what you want on your holidays! First stop was the crocodile cruise. It is somewhat unnerving to be leafing through a scrapbook 10 minutes before casting off containing primarily death-by-crocodile stories from the Kakadu area. You know the sort; 'German girl savaged by 7 metre saltie', 'Tour guide sacked after letting tour group swim in croc-infested waters' etc etc. Picture the scene as the photos are going to follow. Boat full of tourists. Flooded river. Double decker boat, open on the top deck and windows open down stairs. A river full of crocs up to 7m long. A crazy woman with a stick whose job it is to dangle meat in the water to attract the crocs then encourage them to jump out of the water and grab it about 1m from the boat. It was fantastic if a little unnerving to have giant crocs leaping out of the water and getting higher than you if you were on the bottom deck. My favourite croc was the one they know as Michael Jackson easily identifiable because he wears a sequinned glove and cups his genitals a lot. Actually that's not true, he just has a light coloured head and a dark coloured body. We didn't see Hannibal the Cannibal though, a 7 metre beast. (I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to why he is so called). Apparently, if you see Hannibal on your cruise, you won't see any of the other crocodiles!

After the crocs we set off in the direction of the park via the always important liquor store stop. The guide had been given some advice that the road was flooded and you couldn't get in to the park. Like a true man he ignored the advice and we carried on regardless.

The road was flooded but a few crocodile warnings, water 500m wide and half a metre deep is not going to stop a Mitsubishi Canter truck with 16 people is it? The answer is no it's not. Certainly not for the first 430m but if you stop in the water to let someone past then parts that you don't want to fill with water (the intercooler) fill with water and you come to a grinding halt. Still half a metre deep. Fast flowing, 70m from shore and potentially containing crocodiles. Nice!

The day was saved by the man behind. Did you know that a Toyoto Land Cruiser containing 8 people and towing a trailer through the water is capable of stopping, getting hitched up to a 6 tonne Mitsubishi and pulling that out of the water as well. I was impressed. I thought we would be attempting to walk to the other side and was pondering if crocodiles could smell fear? I was already picturing the article of our savage murder appearing in the scrap book at the crocodile cruise centre.

Now I am familar with varying degrees of Diesel engineering problems. Faced with an engine full of water I handled the situation in my own way that will be familiar to the people I used to work with in Dagenham........... I went to lunch and let someone else sort it out!

Good news. Some one else did sort it out. After an hour and a half of tinkering (midday sun, no shade, prime burning time on the roadside) the truck re-started and we were away and carried on with our day which passed relatively smoothly from that point on. We arrived at camp and lit the campfire with 2 litres of Diesel as the wood was too wet and a jolly time was had by all. Our beds were metal frames with a mesh hammock, very 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here'. We slept surprisingly well considering the coolest it got all night was 25 degrees and 85% humidity in a plastic tent. The mosquitos had a field day with my legs though. You will be spared photos.

The morning brought further joy. The water was a long way from the tents when we went to bed. By the morning it had flooded the base of the tents of the group in the next camp and was only 4-5 m away from starting to lap at our temporary home. When the campsite owner came round and said to the guide "You need to leave now" we thought we should pack quickly. When he came back 10 mins later and said "Why are you still here? I told you to get going before the water comes across the road" we really packed fast and we were out of there.

We made it out of the park and back to Darwin but now we are a little bit stuck. We should have been on the road to Alice Springs at 6 tomorrow morning but the road (One road!What sort of backward country has one road going through the middle of it?) is flooded in 2 places so no one can drive from Darwin to Alice and no one can drive from Alice to Darwin. And if you are in the middle of the 2 flooded rivers then you're in for a long wait.

So we are staying in Darwin for....we don't actually know.