darwin

Darwin has made it on to the list of places we would like to live...in fact it has come from nowhere to top the current chart. It is a tropical city, with blue seas, mile upon mile of sandy beach, palm trees, frangipani and ylang ylang trees and bougainvillea hedging.

It may well be that after 3 weeks in the desert any city would look beguiling..in fact anywhere with an ocean, buildings, shops and human beings! But even after a couple of days we were still extremely taken with the city and coastline. Also anywhere that has suburbs named Fannie's Bay and Humpty Doo has to be well worth the accolade.

Unlike Sydney the beaches were not too busy on a Sunday afternoon:





We will return to explore further but meanwhile James dog is safely kenneled and we are in Kakadu National Park discovering, having just returned from the poolside bar, that caravan parks which do not allow dogs are spectacularly luxurious.

We will be exploring the region for a couple of days and then we have booked a 4WD driving and camping tour for 3 days which will take us east to Arnhemland.

The wetlands that we went to today are the first wetlands to date that have actually been wet! A habitat of the whistling duck, the magpie goose, and the estuarine crocodile.