Erik and Erin in Australia

After leaving Kakidu we went to Litchfeild. This is another national park with spectacular waterfalls. While in Litchfeild we got rained on. More rain than we have seen anywhere else in Australia. it was a night that we decided that we didn't need the fly on the tent as well. Sigh. Erin had to get out in the poring rain at 3:00am to set everything up. Thank you Erin. And they told us it was the dry season. Liars.

After Litchfeild we went back to Darwin to drop Kimmy off. We made it safely back and planned to leave for Carins to meet Kim. Our $300 car was having some major problems by this point, but we decided to drive on anyway. The 3,000 kms between Darwin and Cairns was mostly uneventful. At one point we saw a dead rabbit carried off the highway by a big wedge-tailed eagle. These eagles were cool. They are monstrous birds that just watch you drive by without flying away. Another highlight of the trip was the freezing cold nights. Sigh. I thought that it was supposed to be warm in the tropics. The days were actually quite warm, but we were usually in bed so early because it was too cold out to do anything at all.

We arrived in Cairns in time to meet Kim and it's really cool to see someone from home. It makes me realize that going home will be a little weird. Traveling with Kim is great though. Cairns was mostly just a tourist town. Everyone flocks there too see the great barrier reef and the daintree rainforest. So we spent our time doing these things as well. The rainforest and cape tribulation was beautiful, be we did the trip with the most boring tour guide in the world. The only way that I knew he was awake was that he kept the van on the road. The great barrier reef trip was a lot of fun as well. Just snorkeling around the reef for a little while lets you see the most amazing fish and coral. It's easy to tell why this is such a popular tourist attraction.

After Cairns we traveled south to Townsville so that we could take the ferry to Magnetic Island. This is another great island that is covered in rainforest and surrounded by beaches. We also had a failed night of trying to win a trivia contest in the hostel bar.

Now we are in Airlee Beach where we will be departing for a 3 day sailing tour of the Whitsunday islands. We have made it this far, and the worst car trouble we have had is a flat tire(or tyre in Australia). Not having reverse is a bit troublesome at times, but Erin and Kim are great at pushing the car when it's needed. Finally, for the first time in months I am caught up on trip updates. Yay!

Here we have a picture from a roadhouse on the highway between Alice Springs and Darwin. I don't understand it either, but we felt it was bizzarie enough to be picture worthy.

This is another major stop that we made on our trip up throught the centre. Erin and I are at Kathrine Gorge where we spent a day paddeling around and swimming in the river. It was a great day, although I have to admit I was a little nervous to see the tour boats stop to look at crocs in the same water that we were in. They were mostly harmless freshwater crocs though. Not like the one pictured below.

After Kathrine we continued north to Darwin. Darwin was a cool little city, but not really spectacular. We had fun there, and at this point we said goodbye to Matt and Duncan, the two English guys we had been traveling with up to this point. Duncan didn't put any effort into selling his car, so we ending buying it 3 hours before he left for the airport. We got the car for $300. We were pretty happy with that. So we loaded up the car again and set out with Kimmy to explore Kakidu and Litchfeild national parks. These are the main attractions in the area around darwin.

This is a picture from the cruise that we did where we got to see crocs jumping out of the water for the food that the cruise people were dangling over the side of the boat. It was very impressive.

Crocs are quite common in Kakidu and everywhere you go there are warning signs, such as this one. I will have to write more about this later, becuase the internet place is closing, and the staf are looking rather unhappy with me because I am preventing them from going home. Needless to say, we escaped the Northren Terrirtory without getting attacked by crocs, and we managed to meet Kim in Cairns. We are now traveling the east coast with Kim. Hopefully we will be in Sydney before the 28th so that she can fly back to Edmonton.