Sam's Diary in Oz

Today we travelled along the Stuart Highway - the only route in to Darwin. We stopped for a beer at Daly Waters Pub. It's full of character with mimentos from all over the world that passers by had left over the years, everything from currency to knickers pinned on the walls and ceillings.

We stopped for lunch at the natural spring of Mataranka in Elsey National Park. You had to walk down this dirt road to get to the hot springs. It was like something out of a horror movie, tall trees on either side and millions of bats swooping between them, with their piercing screech. The rangers here have done everything they can to try to move the bats on but they come back every year to the same place, at the the last count (and I don't know how they do this) the rangers said there were 7 million of them in this one place. We ran through to the springs, but no one got in to the water, it looked lush but with a few people already having bat shat on them, we decided to give the springs a miss. It didn't smell too good either!

After lunch and a few flies for good measure we made our way to the town of Catherine, just a quick stop to walk along the main road of the town - it took all of 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other.

Then on to the Adelaide River Pub for a cold beer and to meet the famous 'Charlie the water buffalo' a stuffed water buffalo which stands on the bar. It was the very buffalo that was used in the filming of crocodile dundee... poor thing.

Last stretch of road took us to Darwin, arriving about 7pm.

Everyone got on so well and we arranged to meet for dinner at 8.30. Was a great night, we went to the Vic in town for dinner, drinks and dancing. The next morning we all met for breakfast and went to the museum of the Northern Territory. At lunch time we said goodbye to a few that were leaving. Then the remaining 6 of us met for dinner that night too. We walked to Stokes Wharf, a 15 minute walk from the centre of Darwin. They have a couple of food outlet places and we all ate Barramundi fish - yum.

Then out of nowhere a storm blew up, even the locals looked a bit worried. The wind was so strong they moved everyone to one side of the building. The building was swaying and the heavy duty metal doors buckled and pushed rain through. I was scared, but there's nothing you can do, just stay put and hope it passes quickly. One of the tug boats lost both it's lines. It lasted about 2 hours and the muddy walk back to Alans flat was pretty slippery in flip flops.
We only had a quick beer with him before saying goodbye and made tracks back to the hostel.

Daly Waters Pub

Millions of bats