We hand in our 4wd and pick up a 2wd campervan again and drive to Kakadu national park. The scenery is slightly less impressive than the Kimberleys or the Tanami Road, but the Aboriginal sites, rock art and stories are again very impressive. We are very glad to see and hear everything, learn and form our own opinions. Again, magical moments at the sacred site of Ubirr, which is bordering Arnhem land (Aboriginal-only, no entries for whitefellas). And the wetlands with their many species of birds, again very nice. We see lotus birds, with their ridiculously big feet and many parrots, jabirus and commorants. We camp out in a beautiful campsite, and unfortunately meet the biggest amount of mozzies (mosquitos) we have ever seen. And of course get eaten alive!

But the next day, after driving some minutes a huge frilled dragon (google this little guy) crosses the road just before our car, not bad ey? We see many more birds in a billabong and visit the very nice Aboriginal Cultural Centre. At the end of the day, we arrive in Katherine, a nice small town.

The next day we take part in a so called Aboriginal cultural experience. We learn how to make a net-painting, typical Aboriginal art of the Arnhem land region. We learn how to make fire, how to throw a spear and meanwhile our Aborigial guide tells us lots of stories about his tribe, his land, his family and his own life. Really interesting and we learned a lot!!

As beautiful and enriching an experience this was, so disappointing was the next part of that day: the Katherine gorge. We had booked and paid our boattrip through the gorge days before, but the people that booked for us had screwed up, bottomline: we could not go. The boatcomapny was nice enough to help us out and offer us something else, so we could still go. The Katherine gorge is nice, true, but it has been Walt Disnified with busloads of people coming in every hour, and the whole experience did not make us very happy!

Enfin, we shrugged our shoulders, thought of the truely amazing experience of that morning and had a nice glass of wine. The next day, we drove to Litchfield National Park, with its beautiful cascades and quirky termite mounds. Nice swimming in the cascades!!

We concluded our trip in the Top End in Darwin. Well let's say the best part about being in Darwin is actually leaving Darwin - and let's leave it at that!

Joost adds: Darwin has only horrible budget accomodation. Even the campground we stayed on in Darwin was expensive and really bad. There is nothing to do really in Darwin except drinking loads of beer. Many places you actually can get free food if you buy beer. Well, you can figure out what the food will taste like and which people will come here.