Gecko Lodge Darwin

Darwin, the Top End, winner of the strongly contended "Most Remote Sweaty City" award 2007. By God it's hot! It's the wet season, so the atmosphere is also thick with perspiration. It hasn't actually been that rainy so far, touch rainforest, although we've seen some spectacular downpours in the early evenings, where the heavens open and the roads steam as bucketloads of wet stuff falls from the skies. Otherwise during the day it has remained sunny and blue-skied, though it's quite hard to mov...

Heute morgen bin ich in Melbourne gelandet und nach einer Ewigkeit endlich im Hostel angekommen. Hier ist es aehnlich familiaer wie in der Gecko Lodge in Darwin. Erstmal musste ich etwas Schlaf nachholen, aber dann bin ich durch die halbe Innenstadt gelaufen. Melbourne erinnert mich stark an Paris oder Rom, weil die Menschen hier sehr freundlich sind, die Gebaeude schon etwas aelter, aber huebsch sind und einfach das Wetter hier. Ich war spaeter dann in Chinatown essen, was natuerlich sehr ko...

Flying into Darwin there's a load of turbulence and looking out the window we can see the sky being lit up with lightening which looks really cool being above the clouds. Once we've made it through immigration, which involved turning out our bags to declare 8 teabags, a bar of chocolate and a cereal bar, we collapse in chairs and prepare to wait for 4 hours until we can get a shuttle bus into the centre and check into our hostel. The hostel is fairly small and straight away we're treated to f...

We arrived at Gecko Lodge in Darwin quite late in the evening on 9th October. We were not very impressed with our backpacker lodge as it was dirty and disgusting, but we were so tired we just went to sleep. First thing to do the next morning was leave and find somewhere else to sleep. I was not looking forward to what could be a very long walk with our bags and in incredible heat, but just 500m up the road was a very nice place - Elkes and for the same price so we booked in there for the nigh...

Our last leg of the road trip ended today when we drove the relatively short distance from Litchfield National Park north to Darwin. The mood in the car was a little quiet as we knew arriving in Darwin would signify the end of a fantastic journey together. We listened to "Get Born" by Jet one last time, which we've adopted as our driving album (tracks 2,3,4,8 & 9 are great). For the past month we have covered hundreds of kilometres together since leaving Perth. We've seen some of Australia's ...

Just under a month ago I was shivering in my room in Melbourne, wishing my heater still worked and dreaming of sunshine. Now I'm at the Darwin public library, taking advantage of free internet and air conditioning. Although, to be honest, it's uncharacteristically cloudy today and looks like rain. I'd rather see the sun. But maybe the weather is just commiserating with me -- Julie and I said a tearful (Ok, not really, but wistful anyway) goodbye to Thor/Sissy this morning. So we have no wheel...

First of all, I would like to start by saying a very happy birthday to my Mum. Hope you have a great day! Hehe, I am such a creep! That title sounds really sinister actually doesn't it, as if I'm going to blow it up or something - well, obviously I'm not...or am I? No, I'm not, I'm just going to leave it and exchange it for the West Coast. But first let me tell you about a fantastic last few days. I'll start, for a change, where I left off. Rachel and I had a very funny evening at the Woolshe...

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