Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge Darwin

... normally do. Some sixth sense about the luggage? I am traveling with a set of Delsey suitcases which are not cheap. In fact, they are supposedly a very good brand and I bought them specifically for this trip. The lady in the store assured me that they are guaranteed and if I have a problem, they will be replaced. I certainly didn't expect to have a problem with a better and more expensive name brand ...

... the campsite he had visited too. He was honest about them being cheaper than everyone else basically as their vans were older and had seen a lot of use. They were based just out of the main centre so went for a look round and chat with the guy in the office and decided to go for it. So having sorted that, I spent the afternoon in the Museum of the Northern Territory which had an unusual mix of exhibits which included an enormous stuffed crocodile called Sweetheart (bet he ...

... and I resisted the temptation all day. But some Aussie fueled peer pressure led me to try one since I couldn't let them think Americans aren't an adventurous people. So in order to make you guys look good back home, I had to rise to the challenge and take one for the team. And surprisingly that jolt of lemony goodness really does taste good.

And speaking of food, I bought some mangos from the back of a pickup truck out in the ...

... around in their beach gear. I think I'm going to enjoy this!

The apartment is huge! Three bedroom with ensuite and walk in wardrobe, leather sofas and a TV and a swimming pool around the back. Luxury! I took a walk out to get some lunch and the Darwin Beer culture immediately became apparent! Over the road from the apartment is a drive through off license. No need to even get out of the car! Then onwards down Mitchell St ...

... been to see our "Chubby Van" it is called Donkey Punch, no doubt we will share lots of photos of it when we collect it! It is quite small....but will be our home for the next 5 weeks or so! There is a festival on at the moment so there are lots of live bands and shows. We didn't manage to make it out of our Air Conditioned Apartment last night, as we were so tired and decided to watch the cricket instead...Come on England!!

... NP was definitely worth the visit and I had a great day. When I got back I had arranged to meet a couple of the girls to go out for some drinks so after dinner (re-fueling!) we did a mini pub crawl along Darwins Mitchell Street. The Darwin festival was on and as part of this they were running a silent disco in one of the parks so we headed along to this. Unfortunately the organisers had only bought 90 sets of headphones and about 200 people turned up for the ...

... Chlo and I’s benefit. We got our photographs taken with Sharky – who Chlo very affectionately named – and then let him go. Not the kind of things that you see everyday and we grew more and more attached to island life and the group we were living with. After 10 days it was time to go back to Darwin and get a ‘proper’ job, which we did, but Crocker Island will always be a very special place for these two wandering travelers.

I've been doing too many cryptic crosswords. First person to email me the answer to the title of this piece gets a sweet ex-vietnam war zippo lighter. They are super cool. Here we go:

A beginning

Long time no visual stimuli. Lets hop to it.
I really felt in the last week or so that Margs had been ******** on me. It has a habit of sometimes turning on you in all aspects - everything goes to **** in a short amount of time. It happened once before ...

... for 3 hours in a gorge where many times we just kept going in circles. We went to a place called Devils Marbles which looked like a massive load of big rocks just placed randomly in Oz, but was great fun to climb! He also took us to thermal pools which was lovely and i didnt believe that something natural could be so warm, so i wasnt going to go in until i put my feet in and then after that i went into two pools! In the evening we had the ...

... our entire lives watching this spectacle on Wide World of Sports (it started in1974!) it was a thrill to be there. The Mundil Markets, which are popular night-time markets here, were also running so we once again enjoyed local multi-cultural fare. Alex ate 20 mini-pancakes in syrup and Tom ate so many pork buns that we think he is going to turn into one! After lunch we joined in some of the activities on the beach. Alex ran in the under ...