Hi everyone!!
I have just finished cacthing up with The Hills so now i'm ready to catch up with my blog! :P
- (for all the girls - omg, what has Stephanie done to her face??)
Ok, since I last 'blogged' we have been on another tour! We had a 19 hour bus ride to Broome (yuck!) and then had a couple of days chilling out at the hostel. The humidity was crazy - apparently they were suffering from a heat wave on top of the usual heat so one day it reached 49 degrees!!! It was too hot to sit out & sunbathe so we made the most of the air-conditioned tv room and generally chilled out reading/writing our diaries etc! We went down to Cable Beach in the morning before the sun got too hot & it was stunning!
We had our flight to Darwin a couple of days later - we got to the airport the standard 2 hours early and there was only us and about 3 other people there! It was the smallest airport i've ever seen and after we checked in we spent the other hour & a half watching The Ellen DeGeneres show haha!
The first flight we got was lovely - the plane was teeny so it was a bit like flying in a tin can (smaller than easy-jet, if you can imagine it being possible!) but we flew over the beaches & I got some great photos of the 80 mile beach! :o) We then had a quick stopover in a place called Kununurra where all of a sudden a storm picked up! Before we knew it, we were back on the plane & this time it wasn't a nice flight!! You could see the big, thick black clouds approaching & we were heading straight into them! The turbulence was really bad & I think the pilot tried dropping every now & again to see if he could avoid the clouds but I had my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed for the majority of the flight! I managed to get some photos just before we entered the storm (& even caught some lightning in one pic...!)
When we got to Darwin, we got the shuttle to our hostel & had 1 night before we started our 2 day Kakadu tour!
We had to meet the group at 6.30am & after handing in our vouchers, we were told we couldn't take our big backpacks with us (something we were never told!) and we had 5 minutes to re-pack! You should have seen the panic...clothes flying everywhere, it was like digging for gold trying to find my toothbrush & bikini!! We made it on the bus just in time & headed to Kakadu...
After a few hours in the van (me & Ceri in the front with the air-con, ahhh yeaaaa!!!) we arrived at an Aboriginal Camp...where the fun began!
We met our guide (who seemed to have all his teeth except the front two!) who explained a little bit about how he'd grown up in the community and spent his whole life living there, with the same people, doing the same things each day, before he said he was going to 'baptise' us into the Kakadu region...
Ok, so when he got the tin of water out we thought maybe a quick splash and it would all be over...oh no no no, how wrong we were....
No one wanted to go first so after a little bit of awkwardness, Tess (an older lady from Scotland) stepped up.......the guy took the tin in his hands, took a big gulp and sloshed it around his mouth for a while (you can imagine the look on my face!!! "maybe he's a little thirsty I thought??") - then he grabbed hold of Tess's head and pulled her forward before planting a huge spit on her forehead!!!! By this point I think a little bit of sick came up in all our mouths...
As if he hadn't just spat straight on Tess's face, he then felt the need to rub it in, like reaaaaaaaallly rub it in!! The poor lady stepped back, looking traumatised!!
Next it was our go......
I tilted my head so far forward he practically spat on the top of my head! I thought at least this way, it wouldn't dribble down my face...*shudder*!!
So after this we were all a little bit wet, and confused!! We walked through the forest and met his family & friends....here we were taught how they make didgeredoos, weave mats & bags, and how to shoot spears!
As we were being taught how a didgeredoo is made, I noticed the toothless man mixing some paint together....uh oh, round 2!!!! As he came round I thought we were in for the full trible face painting but luckily he just put the stripes on our arms (few!)
We were taught an Aboriginal dance where all the girls had to stand opposite the guys and whilst the guys marched, we had to move one foot to the side and back and shimmy our hands to the right, then to the left....I have honestly never seen such a funny dance move - we felt like prize idiots but it was a good laugh!
Our next stop was the Mary River Wetlands where we went on a riverboat tour in the croc-infested waters! This was good but a little scary as the guide kept letting us know that "in the space between here and the tree 50 meters away, there are about 100 crocs!" - I kept well inside the boat!!
After the boat tour, we stopped for lunch before we headed to Ubirr Rock where we had to treck to find a waterfall - we were literally dripping with sweat when we reached it! I thought one of the guys had fallen in the water & was asking him if he was ok - it turned out he was just dripping with sweat haha!!
Most of the group went for a swim but me & Ceri had left our bikinis back in the van & didn't fancy trecking back in wet denim so we just had a paddle!
When we got back to the van, we headed for our campsite - and found a pool, yippee!! We thought we'd go for a dip to cool off & the pool turned out to be heated to about 30 degrees so it was more like a bath, but still nice nonetheless! :0) After dinner we got some sleep as we had to get up for breakfast at 5.30am (ouch!)
The humidity was crazy and as the sun comes up at 6am, we were quite glad when the alarm went off in the morning! We had breakfast before heading off to Jim Jim Falls before the sun got too high in the sky! We had another treck after leaving the van & then got to a beautiful plunge pool! We remembered our bikinis this time & jumped straight in! It was beautiful but the average depth of the pool reached 60 metres so it made you wonder what you were swimming with!! We spent a good 3 hours at the pool, before trecking back to the car before stopping for lunch nearby. After lunch we headed to some rocks to see Aboriginal Art that was painted up to 2000 years ago! The paintings were cool but the heat was so crazy and you lose count of the amount of flies flying around your face!!
After the rocks, it was time to head back to meet our van taking us back to Darwin!
We got back & decided to use our free meal voucher we'd been given for the nearby pub! We didn't bother showering or getting changed as we thought we'd only be half an hour....
It turned into us getting home at 4am after Ceri won a jug of beer in one game & the dj gave me 2 bottles of champagne!! The other drinks were bought for us so we ended up having a great night out for near enough nothing! We met up with some of our group too so it was a good night out!
We planned on getting up the next day but were so tired (not hungover for some very strange reason!!!) that we had a duvet day!! I think i got dressed at 4pm :o) We then went & got a slice of pizza for dinner before coming back & watching Santa Claus:The Movie (proper slob day!)
Yesterday we decided to have a productive day so we got up relatively early and went to Crocosaurus Cave! Here we held a baby crocodile (kind of slimey!) and went "fishing for crocs" - they give you a fishing rod with some lamb's heart on it & you dip it above a pool of 100 3 year old crocs....they go mental!!
We watched lots of reptiles being fed, including a snake being fed a rat...yummy!
There was also a "cage of death" where people can pay to be lowered into the croc-infested tank in a perspex box! (Not for us, that one!) We watched live footage of a couple in there though which was funny!
The rest of yesterday was spent uploading photos, as my memory card was full & I need space for Ayers Rock tomorrow! :O)
That's about it folks! Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs - as Adventure Tours messed up our coach and didn't book us on it so they agreed to pay for our flights after we kicked up a fuss :o)
We then get down there and start a 3 day Uluru tour to Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon etc! :)
That is a very detailed blog of what we've been up to & now i've uploaded all my pics, hopefully you have a better idea of where we are & what we've been up to!
Look forward to speaking to you all :o)
Lots of love Rachel xxxxxx
I have just finished cacthing up with The Hills so now i'm ready to catch up with my blog! :P
- (for all the girls - omg, what has Stephanie done to her face??)
Ok, since I last 'blogged' we have been on another tour! We had a 19 hour bus ride to Broome (yuck!) and then had a couple of days chilling out at the hostel. The humidity was crazy - apparently they were suffering from a heat wave on top of the usual heat so one day it reached 49 degrees!!! It was too hot to sit out & sunbathe so we made the most of the air-conditioned tv room and generally chilled out reading/writing our diaries etc! We went down to Cable Beach in the morning before the sun got too hot & it was stunning!
We had our flight to Darwin a couple of days later - we got to the airport the standard 2 hours early and there was only us and about 3 other people there! It was the smallest airport i've ever seen and after we checked in we spent the other hour & a half watching The Ellen DeGeneres show haha!
The first flight we got was lovely - the plane was teeny so it was a bit like flying in a tin can (smaller than easy-jet, if you can imagine it being possible!) but we flew over the beaches & I got some great photos of the 80 mile beach! :o) We then had a quick stopover in a place called Kununurra where all of a sudden a storm picked up! Before we knew it, we were back on the plane & this time it wasn't a nice flight!! You could see the big, thick black clouds approaching & we were heading straight into them! The turbulence was really bad & I think the pilot tried dropping every now & again to see if he could avoid the clouds but I had my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed for the majority of the flight! I managed to get some photos just before we entered the storm (& even caught some lightning in one pic...!)
When we got to Darwin, we got the shuttle to our hostel & had 1 night before we started our 2 day Kakadu tour!
We had to meet the group at 6.30am & after handing in our vouchers, we were told we couldn't take our big backpacks with us (something we were never told!) and we had 5 minutes to re-pack! You should have seen the panic...clothes flying everywhere, it was like digging for gold trying to find my toothbrush & bikini!! We made it on the bus just in time & headed to Kakadu...
After a few hours in the van (me & Ceri in the front with the air-con, ahhh yeaaaa!!!) we arrived at an Aboriginal Camp...where the fun began!
We met our guide (who seemed to have all his teeth except the front two!) who explained a little bit about how he'd grown up in the community and spent his whole life living there, with the same people, doing the same things each day, before he said he was going to 'baptise' us into the Kakadu region...
Ok, so when he got the tin of water out we thought maybe a quick splash and it would all be over...oh no no no, how wrong we were....
No one wanted to go first so after a little bit of awkwardness, Tess (an older lady from Scotland) stepped up.......the guy took the tin in his hands, took a big gulp and sloshed it around his mouth for a while (you can imagine the look on my face!!! "maybe he's a little thirsty I thought??") - then he grabbed hold of Tess's head and pulled her forward before planting a huge spit on her forehead!!!! By this point I think a little bit of sick came up in all our mouths...
As if he hadn't just spat straight on Tess's face, he then felt the need to rub it in, like reaaaaaaaallly rub it in!! The poor lady stepped back, looking traumatised!!
Next it was our go......
I tilted my head so far forward he practically spat on the top of my head! I thought at least this way, it wouldn't dribble down my face...*shudder*!!
So after this we were all a little bit wet, and confused!! We walked through the forest and met his family & friends....here we were taught how they make didgeredoos, weave mats & bags, and how to shoot spears!
As we were being taught how a didgeredoo is made, I noticed the toothless man mixing some paint together....uh oh, round 2!!!! As he came round I thought we were in for the full trible face painting but luckily he just put the stripes on our arms (few!)
We were taught an Aboriginal dance where all the girls had to stand opposite the guys and whilst the guys marched, we had to move one foot to the side and back and shimmy our hands to the right, then to the left....I have honestly never seen such a funny dance move - we felt like prize idiots but it was a good laugh!
Our next stop was the Mary River Wetlands where we went on a riverboat tour in the croc-infested waters! This was good but a little scary as the guide kept letting us know that "in the space between here and the tree 50 meters away, there are about 100 crocs!" - I kept well inside the boat!!
After the boat tour, we stopped for lunch before we headed to Ubirr Rock where we had to treck to find a waterfall - we were literally dripping with sweat when we reached it! I thought one of the guys had fallen in the water & was asking him if he was ok - it turned out he was just dripping with sweat haha!!
Most of the group went for a swim but me & Ceri had left our bikinis back in the van & didn't fancy trecking back in wet denim so we just had a paddle!
When we got back to the van, we headed for our campsite - and found a pool, yippee!! We thought we'd go for a dip to cool off & the pool turned out to be heated to about 30 degrees so it was more like a bath, but still nice nonetheless! :0) After dinner we got some sleep as we had to get up for breakfast at 5.30am (ouch!)
The humidity was crazy and as the sun comes up at 6am, we were quite glad when the alarm went off in the morning! We had breakfast before heading off to Jim Jim Falls before the sun got too high in the sky! We had another treck after leaving the van & then got to a beautiful plunge pool! We remembered our bikinis this time & jumped straight in! It was beautiful but the average depth of the pool reached 60 metres so it made you wonder what you were swimming with!! We spent a good 3 hours at the pool, before trecking back to the car before stopping for lunch nearby. After lunch we headed to some rocks to see Aboriginal Art that was painted up to 2000 years ago! The paintings were cool but the heat was so crazy and you lose count of the amount of flies flying around your face!!
After the rocks, it was time to head back to meet our van taking us back to Darwin!
We got back & decided to use our free meal voucher we'd been given for the nearby pub! We didn't bother showering or getting changed as we thought we'd only be half an hour....
It turned into us getting home at 4am after Ceri won a jug of beer in one game & the dj gave me 2 bottles of champagne!! The other drinks were bought for us so we ended up having a great night out for near enough nothing! We met up with some of our group too so it was a good night out!
We planned on getting up the next day but were so tired (not hungover for some very strange reason!!!) that we had a duvet day!! I think i got dressed at 4pm :o) We then went & got a slice of pizza for dinner before coming back & watching Santa Claus:The Movie (proper slob day!)
Yesterday we decided to have a productive day so we got up relatively early and went to Crocosaurus Cave! Here we held a baby crocodile (kind of slimey!) and went "fishing for crocs" - they give you a fishing rod with some lamb's heart on it & you dip it above a pool of 100 3 year old crocs....they go mental!!
We watched lots of reptiles being fed, including a snake being fed a rat...yummy!
There was also a "cage of death" where people can pay to be lowered into the croc-infested tank in a perspex box! (Not for us, that one!) We watched live footage of a couple in there though which was funny!
The rest of yesterday was spent uploading photos, as my memory card was full & I need space for Ayers Rock tomorrow! :O)
That's about it folks! Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs - as Adventure Tours messed up our coach and didn't book us on it so they agreed to pay for our flights after we kicked up a fuss :o)
We then get down there and start a 3 day Uluru tour to Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon etc! :)
That is a very detailed blog of what we've been up to & now i've uploaded all my pics, hopefully you have a better idea of where we are & what we've been up to!
Look forward to speaking to you all :o)
Lots of love Rachel xxxxxx
wow! loads been happening! great to read and will comment more later - got to see the x factor results show now ;-)
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Just received your p.c ,letter and fridge magnet. Thank you so much.How do you find the time. We are enjoying reading your blog.Sounds as though you are having a fab time. Paul was in newcastle at weekend to see watford play newcastle and had a great time even though we won. spoke to him but did not manage to meet up. Too busy checking out our night life. Good for him.We are busy getting into festive mode. Where will you be spending xmas this year. We will be at Fionas on xmas day with all the family. Prior to that i am taking the children to the local panto to see Jack and the beanstalk. Oh yes i am. Tonight though off with the girls to see Craig Chalmers in Joseph and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat.Love Judith and Keith
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