We had chosen one of the backpackers from our guidebook to stay in and I had called them the day before while we were in Cairns to make a reservation. The backpacker in question is called Frogshollow and the guide book recommended it. They said it was clean and well maintained amongst other things. At some point I will have to ask the authors of the guidebook what their definition of clean and well maintained is. The place may be brightly painted but that doesn't mean clean. While it certainly isn't the worst hostel we've had, it's a fair way from being the best. It's strange how I would rank the hostels in some of the poorer countries that we've been to so far as being better than some of the ones we've found in Australia. It's a bit of a disappointment.

Anyway, enough moaning. It's a roof over our heads and as I said, it's certainly not the worst place that we've found.

We have six or seven days in Darwin before we head off to Singapoore (see what I did there - I made a joke) so we'll be taking it easy. Our first day here saw us do not much more than walk around the city a little bit and eat lunch in park. Oh, and how could I forget? We booked ourselves into Raffles for one night in Singapore.

Darwin itself has a couple of things that are worth seeing. Their parliament house is quite impressive, as are the oil storage tunnels. The storage tunnels were built during WWII to store oil for Australia's naval fleet. Unfortunately the war ended before they could be used but they are still there and they're huge. Two tunnels are visible to the public. I took a photo of the one you can't walk in. It's about 70m long and 4 or 5m high and capable of storing many, many millions of litres. The second tunnel was more than twice that length but filled with tourists, not literally filled of course but you know what I mean.

A lot of places in Australia like to refer to themselves as the gateway to somewhere or other. Some of the time it's just an attempt to boost their tourist numbers. In Darwin's case it's quite accurate. The Northern Territory is a very, very big place and yet it has very few inhabitants. It's about 8sq-km to every person. I imagine very few areas of the world can boast that. Despite its vastness, the NT has some amazing natural sights and we booked a couple of tours to go and see some of them. Our first one was to Kakadu national park.

Being such a big place, day trips in the NT can be very, very long days. We had to be ready by 6:15 to go to Kakadu. Our bus didn't show until 6:30 but that wasn't bad considering that the bus had suffered a puncture and the driver had also had to go back for his shoes. Our guide and driver for the day was a nice chap called Owen who fitted almost perfectly into my idea of what an Australian was before I ever met one. Being so early in the day, it took a while before anything he said sank in but when it did, he turned out to know quite a huge amount about Darwin and its surroundings.

Getting to the Kakadu national park took a few hours and we went to see some Aboriginal rock art first of all in Ubirr. Some of the paintings had been there for hundreds or thousands of years and were quite spectacular. The views were also impressive. All you could see was bush in every direction.

We had a barbecue lunch by the swimming pool in the town of Jabiru. I got to try some kangaroo meat (like beef but a little sweeter maybe) and cooled off in the pool. Above us in the trees were hundreds and hundreds of fruit bats. It was all a bit odd as a combination but great at the same time.

In the afternoon we took a cruise on the Alligator river to get a close look at some crocodiles in the wild. We also got to see some sea eagles and a host of other interesting and brightly coloured birds. I can't even remember their names now. How useless am I? It was quite funny that the boat we were on broke down moments after we started. They eventually got it going again but I couldn't help but laugh to myself at the other people on the cruise who all had an opinion on why the boat wouldn't start again and of course, from their positions several feet away and sitting down, were all correct. (Did I drip that with enough sarcasm?) Anyway, we saw several, quite large, salt water crocodiles either swimming or waiting near the banks. One was at least four metres long. Hang on, "What's a salt water crocodile doing in a fresh water river?" I hear you ask. Salties (their nickname) are perfectly happy in either salt or fresh water. We were warned that if the boat sank or capsised that we should grab a life jacket and throw it in the opposite direction to distract the crocodile and then make a break for the bank. Salties kill people quite happily as a few unfortunate people find out from time to time.

After the cruise, we headed to Noarlangie rock. The rock is quite impressive by itself but there was also some more Aboriginal art to see. But that was about it for the day. We just had a 3 hour drive back to Darwin. On the way, Owen played a recording of a great speech by a chap called Len Bidell(?) about his time in the Australian outback creating rocket ranges for the British government. If you get the chance, listen to it, it's quite funny.

Our Kakadu trip really was a great day out, besides the stuff that I've mentioned we saw snakes, wallabies and loads of interesting plants and sights and Owen crammed our heads with more information than it's possible for me to retain in a day. The tour is called Kakadu Magic and I'd thoroughly recommend it.

We had two very lazy days after that. Sitting by the pool or in the park. Our next tour was to Katherine gorge with another tour company. The group was a lot bigger this time but it was still a fun day out. We started out early again and called in at Australia's largest war cemmetary on the way down south. Our next stop after that was Edith Falls - a swimming opportunity. Even I had a swim it was so nice, usually I don't like water that you can't see the bottom of and that might have lurking fish in it.

After a buffet lunch in Katherine, we headed to the gorge and took a couple of boat trips up the river. The gorge is spectacular and also full of canoeists. There was a bit of Aboriginal art part way along and despite the fact that there's a lot of rock involved, it was quite an interesting two hours.

That was about it for the day though. Our driver and guide started to take us back to Darwin then. He was also very knowledgeable and made the day fun and interesting. He also made a good beer recommendation when we stopped for supper. I got to try barramoundi(?), a local fish and I went back for more because it was rather nice.

After that it was just driving but we got to listen to Len Biddell again and it was still funny.

The following day we were back with Owen again. Whilst dropping people off from the Kakadu trip he had mentioned Litchfield national park and it sounded like fun so we joined him again for another great day out.

We had a number of great stops during the day and a couple of swimming opportunities. Our first stop was Florence falls, a brief stop for the view and some more information on bush plants, animals and insects. Our second stop was Buley's rockholes. The rock holes were formed by a river and they made a great and welcome swimming stop.

After another great barbecue lunch, we headed to a stretch of water for another little cruise. This one though was not as commercial as the previous ones we had taken. There was only one little boat there and only Owen and one other company use it. The road leading to the water was unsealed and very bumpy and surrounded by dryish bush land. Right by the water though, you could have been in England it was so green. Perhaps a bit hot for England but still. Oh, and there were crocodiles there, they're not usually found in England either. Anyway, it was really peaceful out there and we saw so much good stuff. The small size of our group helped a lot. We got to see quite a few more crocodiles and a few new birds too. There was a lilly hopper (it has another name but I can't remember it) or two and pelicans, sea eagles, rainbow bee eaters and much, much more.

Our final stop of the day was to see the termite mounds. Termites are quite scary in the way they build these mounds. The cathedral mound below would be about 8 times wider and 3 or 4 times taller than the tallest building in the world if it were built to human scales. And there are loads of these all over the bush. The magnetic mounds (so called because they are all aligned north to south) are only found in this small part of Australia and in the gradually lowering sun they looked like gravestones.

Another great day out.

So, that's about it for Darwin and Australia. We're off to Singapore now. Hopefully though we'll be back here one day.