Day 28
Travel Location: Darwin,Australia
We reached Top End today. Top End refers to the region around Darwin. It is too the north most point of our travel and by reaching Darwin we have successfully crossed a country and a continent by car. That of course calls for celebration.
The climate changed from Mataranka a bit and became more humid. The travel took us along the last leg of the Stuart Highway and we made one stop on the trip at the Berry Springs about 80 km before Darwin. The springs are located in a natural park and within a few hundred meters walk there are four entries into the upper and lower pool. We tried the upper pool first where the springs come from. However, the top part was occupied by a singing and shouting group of beer drinking men. So we decided to walk to the part further down. Compared to yesterday’s spring, this was much larger and with less vegetation inside the pool. However it was deeper and we saw some quite large fishes. The pool is croc free; although we have been told that sometimes people release baby fresh water croc’s to scare people.
That of course means we have reached the part of Australia where Croc’s are part of the wildlife. Despite being it hot and humid, it is mostly not possible to swim in rivers due to crocodiles. We looked for some dive sites, but diving in the ocean is not advisable at this time of the year because of the box jellyfish. Their stings can be quite harmful and in some cases fatal.
Having no aircon and the heat and humidity being high, we decided to check into a hotel. It is currently low season and so we got a good deal on the Holiday Inn Esplanade. It is located with Ocean view directly in the CBD of Darwin. We decided to go out and eat seafood. Darwin is a small town and where normally business buildings dominate the skyline of major cities, the tallest buildings are hotels and apartments. The main streets to find food are Cullen Bay, Mitchel Street and The Wharf. After having had a drink at the Monsoon, we decided on a restaurant nearby. It is supposed to serve good seafood in a variety of Asian styles. The Hanuman is located on Mitchell Street, just behind the Holiday Inn. We ordered the Thai fish, tofu, fish curry and okra. To celebrate the crossing of the continent we had some bubbly. The food was excellent and we can recommend the restaurant, although it is not cheap.
