Engine Damage Run Out Of Diese;

We reached the Top End!

In less than a week we crossed from south to north Europe, a continent as large as 3000 km ... always straight down the Stuart Highway in the middle of nowhere ... ... through the cold winter of Adelaide to tropical heat (too hot! ) Darwin ... all with our faithful Commodore, who sometimes loses fuel from the tank and has recently also been left without an antenna and without wings ...
Among Adelaide to Alice Springs to Coober Pedy we stopped just to sleep ... or rather , we tried, since we were awakened at 3 am by a group of Australian drunk and annoying.

For Alice instead we took two days to see sightseeing that we had been back from our first visit.

We had a short but exciting visit to the School of the Air , an institution that I believed belonged to the past of absolute isolation of the Australian outback. Instead, to my surprise, the "school of the air" by Alice now has a hundred pupils who live miles and miles away, mostly in remotest outback cattle station, going to school without leaving home, simply by connecting via the Internet (and before the Internet via radio) with the teacher.
leaving school, we went to the Standley Chasm, in the West McDonnell Ranges. We went to see the gorge, which proved to be a bit 'disappointing, then we had a good walk out of the program ... and off the track ... because after losing the path we found ourselves on the path of the Larapinta Trail, a walk of 130 km people to super expert, with this sign:

course we followed the advice written in large letters "TURN BACK NOW" and we're back, this time from the true path!

Before leaving town we spent a few hours at the Cultural Precinct which houses a fine exhibition of Aboriginal works and a very interesting video telling the story of a guy (Geoff Bardon), which has transformed an Aboriginal community of poor people who lived on nothing in the middle of nowhere, in the artists most appreciated.

the evening we again camped in the shadow of Devils Marble and the next day we found ourselves in unexplored land ... and finally warm!

Maybe too hot ...

The first stop we made in the country (if the country can be defined!) Australia's most absurd, absurd in the pubs of Australia ... Daly Waters!
the walls of the pub was hanging everything from underwear (male and female!), Suits, shirts, plates, banknotes and coins from around the world, plaques, flip flops, passport photos (now also mine!) And various cards ... and so on and so forth ... What you do not invent the aussie to stop the tourists! We have just stopped for a beer for the occasion ... and then we just ran away from that stifling heat
... The next stop was the natural pools of thermal water at 34 degrees Mataranka
... When we were still thought to Waikerie to this place as heaven ... but then once you are there, with the outdoor temperature already pretty high, I dreamed a dip ice cream ... and it just arrived we assembled the tent and then we took a dip in the Roper River, near the camp. The hot bath
us know we made the following morning at Bitter Springs, where you could swim along a stretch of a stream surrounded by rain forest, where the water was crystal clear.

Towards mid-day we went to the Litchfield National Park (after a stop at the supermarket to make Katherine the usual supply of food in cans!).
We put the tents in a camp near the Wangi Falls, which according to all guides had to be the best that the park had to offer.
When we arrived the sun was already going down, but I was too curious to see the waterfalls, so I convinced the boys to give us a quick tour ...
choice fits perfectly! The place was almost deserted, the setting sun was coloring in red and all the rocks around the falls were spectacular!

Needless to say we had a bath ...
Having had this corner of paradise for us was really something priceless.
The day we took a ride to the other waterfalls and natural pools of the park, which certainly were not less than ... the Florence Falls and Buley Rockhole (which is not a real waterfall but it is a stretch of river with waterfalls and wading pools, one after another, as if made for relaxing in the cool water while you massage the current).
It was really a day to be framed!

the evening we arrived in Darwin ...

In Darwin we have only been two days ... just enough time to realize that the only thing to do was photograph the sun dipping into the sea at sunset and filled up with Asian food at the Sunset Market on Sunday evening ...

At the market we indulged tasting food ... just about anything Japanese, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Thai (I ate the noodles with barramundi, which was spectacular!), crepes with nutella and fruit salad giants ... all surrounded by a sunset postcard!

He was breathing really an exotic ...

The day after the roadmap after the Kakadu National Park, the park's largest, most famous and perhaps the most beautiful and rich from the naturalistic point of view of Australia!
I will not describe how it feels when you're on the edge of a cliff and overlooks the vast plains below ... what it's facing a billabong covered with water lilies ... what you get when you do a walk of 12 km around the majestic rock Nourlangie or when you find yourself admiring drawings on the rocks twenty thousand years old ... what do you feel when you spot a crocodile in a river or a kangaroo when you cross the path
... The words in this case bastarebbero ...
I hope a bit 'of photos can help ...

the dark spot in the middle and 'a croc ... I assure you!

All this, however, there are the hard-earned: the heat and humidity and the mosquitoes were unbearable literally takes you by storm. The only night we camped in the park is was a hell ... As soon as we got to bed was unbearably hot and the tent had been invaded by mosquitoes. Then in the middle of the night, suddenly, out of the blue , and 'got a nice time!
The tent where they slept on Bent and Vito has survived ... one where there was me and five minutes after Dani was already full of water! Among other things we had not even installed properly because ', as often happens, to plant the stakes in the red earth of the outback would need a jackhammer ... but so much "I figured if it rains !"...
Forget it ... we escaped in the car and there we had to start again the work of exterminating the mosquitoes ...
Well ... a night nightmare ...
thought that the situation could be repeated the next night made us feel at Kakadu a day less than expected ...

The last three days in the Northern Territory we have passed the most fresh and funny Nitmiluk National Park, Katherine.
We bathed in the huge pool of Edith Falls, doveho had an unpleasant encounter with a giant lizard that I crossed the road while I swam towards the waterfall!) And we set the canoe down the Katherine River, which runs through a spectacular high walls of rock overhanging!
And just to Edith Falls' happened to one of those things that often happen in Australia and leave you stunned: the Bent met two boys had met on the flight to Dubai! Once again ... Australia and the series' small!
We also met two guys from Melbourne who have given us, in addition to some great conversations in good Inglese, a cafe 'mocha made with a bed for when we get Mel!

camp in the evening we roasted marshmallows on the fire in the company of a wallaby greedy ... =)