Andrew Betts

I can now officially say that I've slept in an airport. And as airports go, Singapore isn't a bad choice. The annoying thing was that the really nice comfy chairs (the ones in that lounge I mentioned ages ago) were in the transit area, which you can't get to without checking in. And you can't check in until two hours prior to departure. So we went to the food court and had some snacks, and watched BBC world on the TVs overhead. They also had a pool table so we played a few games on that too. This left us with about four hours to kill until the earliest we could possibly be allowed to check in. I found a kid's play area, one of the ones with soft rubber on the floor, and slept there - David chose to 'roam the airport'.

At about 6am, I had breakfast, then we collected our luggage and tried to check in again - at least there were QANTAS people in attendance now. Mercifully they allowed us through, and I made sure I got our exit-row seats. After the formalities of emigration and customs, we entered the transit area, where the seats are comfy sofas instead of moulded plastic and metal, and where there is an internet area and a cactus garden. We were almost rushed.

Check out time at our hostel is officially 9am, so having woken up at 9:06am, I packed leisurely, accepting the inevitable late-checkout fee. As it turned out, I avoided the fee anyway, so that was lucky.

Walking out of reception after checking out, I was stunned to find Tamara (from King's Canyon) was sitting on the veranda. We talked for a few minutes - she still hadn't done any interviews - and then I left for town to get some breakfast. The world seemed to have shrunk overnight though, for when I found a suitable café for breakfast, Sophie (from Kakadu) was there. This was becoming a fine last day. I went to the cinema and had lunch with Sophie, and said goodbye just before 2pm, to go catch my airport shuttle.

I was arriving ridiculously early for my flight (3 hours, in fact), but I wanted to be sure of a good seat, preferably exit row. I was out of luck - the flight had actually originated in Cairns and all the exit row seats were taken by people from Cairns. I did manage to get a fairly good seat near the front of the plane though.

In the end, I didn't notice the lack of legroom. I was sitting next to an Australian couple from Darwin, and we talked for the whole flight, which was great, because it passed the three hours in no time at all. One of my new friends was in the Australian army, and told me some of the stories that the Aussies tell the Americans when they are stationed together. These are 1) The Sydney Harbour Bridge was modified during the second world war so that if the Japanese invaded the harbour, the removal of one rivet would cause the bridge to collapse, crushing the invasion force. 2) if you leave you car door open for more than a few seconds a Kangaroo is likely to jump into your car. 3) Koalas get drunk on Eucalyptus leaves and frequently fall out of their trees as a result, so people walking through forests in Australia should always beware of falling Koalas. 4) There is a native Australian snake called the ring snake which kills humans by encircling their neck and then swallowing its own tail until it is small enough to strangle the victim.

All of these stories are, of course, absolute rubbish - but the American servicemen are often convinced. Actually I was almost convinced by a couple of them - he told them so well.

On arrival in Singapore, we had to decide whether to go to a hotel for the night. We decided against this on the basis that we could use the late evening and early morning hours to explore the city, at least to some extent. We got directions from the information desk to the zoo, which was open until midnight, and got a bus to the MRT (mass rapid transit) station.

The zoo turned out to be further away then anticipated, and we ended up just returning to the airport on the MRT and by taxi, but at least we had thoroughly reviewed Singapore's public transport system, if nothing else.

On waking up, I discovered that I had just under 40 mosquito bites. David and John were both virtually unscathed, so I came to the inescapable conclusion that I must be very tasty indeed. We had to be up at 5:00am, so that we could leave by 6. Thus the entire getting up and having breakfast was conducted, very unnaturally, in the darkness. We switched to a four wheel drive bus (borderline truck, actually) for the trip to Jim Jim and Twin Falls Waterfalls. Jim Jim Falls is accessible via a walking track, and only in the dry season. In the wet season, believe it or not, the only way to get there is by helicopter. Another feature of Jim Jim peculiar to the dry season, is that it is dry - the waterfall is not in flow. Despite this, it is still an amazing sight, especially at this time of the morning.

We spent about 15 minutes here, before returning along the same walking track, hopping back into the truck and going to our second waterfall stop - Twin Falls.

Twin Falls, by contrast, is in flow all year round, but is not accessible by foot at all, at any time of the year. The only way to get to it is to swim upstream from the nearest accessible point on the river's edge. We all gingerly entered the water, mindful of the signs that littered the area, saying

Saltwater crocodiles have been known to slip into this area undetected

and

Swim at your own risk

The water was warm and devoid of either salt or chlorine, and crocodiles were soon the last thing on my mind. It was a swimming pool where you can keep swimming without ever reaching the far side, but with panoramic views of a magnificent gorge from a unique perspective thrown in as well. What's more, even though it was a very hot day, as days in the Kakadu inevitably are, I stayed delightfully cool, and was able to enjoy the scenery all the more for it.

As we swam up the gorge, someone spotted a croc lying on a rock in the middle of the river.  General panic ensued until we were assured that it was a freshwater croc and not interested in us.  "It's only a tiddler" was the guide's assessment, though at about 2 metres long it was big enough for my liking.  It stayed put as we swam past.

The process of getting to the base of the falls involved "rock-hopping" - periodically getting out of the water, clambering over rocks, and getting back in again to swim some more. Eventually the waterfalls came into view, and we 'landed' on a beach area at the side of the pool.

We spent perhaps an hour at the waterfall, eating lunch (carried there in waterproof containers), taking photos, and generally messing around in the water. Some people even carried their cameras into the water and swam with them over to the shallow water in the centre of the pool to get a better angle, and to get close up shots of other people in the water, but I didn't want to risk that.

By the time we had to go, the sun had got over the edge of the gorge and the whole river was now in the sun, which made for a warm swim back to the walking track. The trip back seemed to go really quickly, and I found myself wanting to stay in longer.

Back in Darwin (five hours later!) we were given vouchers for the evening meal, which would be courtesy of Adventure Tours. Sounded good to me. It was a great evening - the pub had reserved a table for the group, so it was a good opportunity to get contact details for my new friends.

The Kakadu is for Darwin what the Great Barrier Reef is for Cairns - a must see. We departed early, taking an annoying amount of time to pick up everyone else booked on the tour, and then headed off to the park. We were in a small bus, with a group of 17, none of whom said anything at all, as far as I could make out, for the 1½ hour drive to our first stop. This was simply because our tour guide failed to introduce everybody.

I can't help but keep coming back to this thought - if the tour guides kept people entertained better, then they wouldn't get drowsy and bored during the long drives. In Australia, I'd have thought the tour guides would be world experts on this by now. Anyway, our first stop was a nice spot called Fogg Dam, which would have been a good opportunity for a bit of nature education from our tour guide, but it wasn't forthcoming - she seemed to know a great deal, but was only answering questions, not volunteering information.

Since I was riding up front, I took the opportunity to ask some - the most important one, in my opinion, being "is a wallaby just a smaller version of a kangaroo?". The answer is no - the wallaby and kangaroo belong to the same family, but wallabies, in addition to being much smaller, have a different jaw structure, and have fur, where kangaroos have hair. Anyone tell me the difference between fur and hair? No? Answers on a postcard please.

Soon we arrived at the real destination for the day: Ubirr, which was the site of a great deal of Aboriginal rock painting. Our tour guide became a bit more active at this point, and led the group round a few sites, reeling off a practiced commentary. Still, the sites were definitely worth visiting, and woke us all up a bit. We finished the walk on the top of a hill with a superb view of the wetlands and rock formations that characterise the Kakadu.

In the early evening, we arrived at our campsite. I was seriously apprehensive about this, as I had been made aware some years before that camping meant dispensing with such fairly essential amenities as electricity, plumbing, air conditioning and telephones. Maybe I am going a bit overboard here, I mean, when people say "nature is a million star hotel", I have no objections, I just can't understand why they can't actually build one.

I'm joking of course, but it was still a first - and I was to have another two before the day was out.

The tents themselves were quite luxurious, so I'm told by David, who is skilled in the art of camping - they had proper beds inside, anyway. Vanessa, our ever-positive tour guide, suggested that we might want to organise a campfire, and this led to my second "first" for the day. I had never collected wood for a fire before, and as I did so, using only the moonlight to guide me - I had forgotten my torch - I reflected that this would not be a poor choice of location for a follow-up "Blair Witch Project" sequel. Especially considering that in Australia, there is actually a not insignificant chance that something will come and get you during the night.

We managed to collect enough wood to fuel a fire that lasted about four hours, which was quite impressive, if you ask me. The third first of the day came shortly after we had finished collecting the wood, and involved eating spaghetti bolognaise, which I do not normally like - can't remember why - and found it was rather nice (especially, apparently, when you can't see it very well).

Deirdre had given me the name of a friend in Darwin who owned a travel agency in the Mall, so I made this my target for the morning. David was whizzing around the place on his scooter, the novelty value of which had not yet worn off, and John had decided to hire a moped and explore a bit further out of town.

Having picked up a sultana muffin and a banana smoothie by way of breakfast, I arrived at Jet Set Travel at about 11 o'clock. Veronica was there, and after a brief chat she offered to take me to a market in a suburb called Parap, since she had to collect her cat from the vet there. I accepted, and agreed to wait 30 minutes while she finished some work. Wandering back out onto the Mall, I walked straight into David.

So it was both David and I that got into Veronica's truck (Ute?) half an hour later. The market was much smaller than the one on Mindil beach, but I found some more good souvenirs and David had a temporary tattoo done.

We were not able to stay at the market for long, because we both had to get back to the hostel, then make our way to the beach. At this point our opinions on how to get there diverged. I preferred to take a bus service, and did, which got me there way before David, who opted for a bus to the airport, a plane to approximately 10,000 feet above the beach, and then gravity to get the rest of the way very quickly indeed. Yes, that would be skydiving, otherwise known as demonstrating that you are absolutely nuts.

In the evening we followed a recommendation from our hostel receptionist, and went to the Blue Heelers pub, where you get a free meal with every drink purchase. The meals were very small, but there's nothing to stop you from buying two drinks, so it was possible to have a large meal very cheaply indeed.

For our first full day in Darwin, we split up to explore our various interests. David headed off to hire a bike, but with the temperature already heading for the hotter side of 30º, and humidity so high I felt I was walking through a bowl of soup, I was definitely not in any shape to handle such strenuous excesses. While John chose the powered option and hired a 50cc buggy, I decided to check out the Aviation museum.

Darwin has quite a history when it comes to aviation. It was bombed and virtually destroyed by the Japanese during the second world war, and is still home to a very sizable RAAF base. During my time here, the Australian armed forces were conducting a major exercise called PITCH BLACK, which suffered something of a public relations disaster when an RAAF fighter accidentally dropped a missile used for training over Darwin, and it completely destroyed a Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4 belonging to a local resident. Oops.

After taking about an hour to figure out the bus system (the bus stops in Darwin are very 'economical', only about a metre high) I found the depot, from where it was a relatively simple matter to find the No. 8 bus, which goes to the museum via the Stuart highway which circles the airport before going all the way to Alice Springs.

The museum was rather good, having in addition to a collection of vintage aircraft, a number of excellent displays, and towering over everything else in the museum, a B52 bomber - one of only two on display outside the United States. My attention was particularly caught by the story of an American pilot by the name of Amelia Earhart, who vanished from the face of the Earth whilst attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe by air. There have been many theories about the fate of the plane, pilot, and her navigator, including that they had run off together to live in seclusion out of the public eye, that they were involved in a top secret spying operation for the US government, and even that they were 'abducted by aliens'.

Another exhibit commemorated the first, and by far the most devastating attack on Darwin by the Japanese. The Australians were caught by surprise and the city was virtually defenceless.

Back at the hostel, I took a dip in the pool, then we went to dinner at 'Sizzlers' in Mitchell St.

Taking a flight in a hot air balloon had been on my list of things to do for a long time, and we were finally going for a flight. In fact, this was to prove quite a busy day for flying, since we were scheduled to take the more conventional form of air transport to Darwin later in the day.

The balloon flight was certainly exhilarating - and seeing the setting up and packing away process was fascinating, but the experience was otherwise not quite as exciting as I'd hoped. After the flight, breakfast was laid on at the date farm back in Alice, which was quite a lucky coincidence, since I hadn't had time to go there myself. There was something a bit unusual about drinking champagne while eating a breakfast which included chicken drumsticks, in a date farm, with two kangaroos hopping around our feet looking for scraps.

After this strange breakfast, we returned to our hostel to pack for our trip to Darwin, and still managed to check out by 10am. A taxi took us to the airport, and I was once again amazed by its size - it was even smaller than Perth. The planes were getting bigger though - this one was a 737.

When we arrived in Darwin, accommodation was sparse, and as we hadn't pre-booked anything, we were unable to get anywhere central. We ended up at Elkes Backpackers Lodge on Mitchell St, which turned out to be a good choice - bathrooms were a bit grubby but it had a wonderful pool, and the setting was lush green tropical plants. The receptionist informed us that there would be a market on Mindil beach in the evening, and so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be further away than expected - no surprise there - but we found it, and it was really good. There were so many different types of food available that my dinner consisted of elements from Italian, Chinese, Australian, and even Slovakian cuisines. I spent ages wandering through all the stalls (it was quite a sizable market), had a massage, bartered for a scooter David wanted, and bought some souvenirs to give to Mum and Dad.

Another late start allowed us a lie-in. John and David decided to hire bikes and ride "to the middle of nowhere and back again". But with a guidebook full of places to go, I decided to visit the Old Ghan Train Museum.

The Gahn was named after the Afghan Cameleers who preceded it as a means to transport goods to the red centre. The original Ghan was a mixture of narrow and standard gauge track, and stopped short of Alice Springs, which at least left the cameleers with something to do, but the train itself was notorious - it was said that if the train was due in on a Tuesday, and it arrived sometime on the Tuesday, then it was on time. In fact, even by this fairly generous standard it was often late, due to flooding of the track and mechanical problems. These days, the modern Ghan uses an all-standard gauge track that was built from scratch, and takes just over one day to make the trip from Adelaide to Alice Springs where it took over 10 days before. At the time the original track was built, there were plans to extend it to Darwin, but these have never been acted upon.

The museum is about 10km out of town, which is probably a "generous stroll" to an Alice Springs resident, but definitely well out of my range. I opted for the Alice Wanderer, which is a bus service that tours all of the major Alice sights on a 70-minute cycle. I was virtually the only person there, apart from an uninterested ticket-seller who cautioned me to "watch out for trains". This warning was clearly unnecessary. The trains probably can move, but they weren't doing much of anything at the time. The museum was however, excellent, and I was able to freely wander through the old Ghan carriages, which was nice - I half expected the entire thing to be in a whacking great glass box liberally sprinkled with 'do not touch' labels.

Next to the train museum is another monument to transport of years gone by, this time of the road-borne variety. This was nowhere near as good as the train museum, and except for a few placards here and there, was basically a warehouse full of old cars and trucks. I can imagine a truck enthusiast walking through here in absolute awe and saying things like "Isn't that a Model C Ford 1942 mark 4 V2 486 with the brass radiator guard and full leather interior - why yes it is", and then jumping up and down in sheer joy. I, on the other hand, was saying things like "Oh look it's a truck - and that one's a slightly smaller truck" and so on. In fact, I did learn one useful thing from the collection, and that was how road trains work.

A road train, which seems to be a uniquely Australian concept, involves taking a big truck, and hooking it up to more than one trailer - in fact, there can be quite a lot hauled by a single engine. The clever bit is that each trailer will follow exactly in the path of the one in front of it, which ensures that the trailers will not try to cut corners.

From the transport museums I re-boarded my bus (it had done another loop around the town in the meantime) and headed for the School of the Air. This was definitely the best display I had seen today - there was a very informative and professional video, and the staff were friendly and helpful. The School of the Air is not a flying school as many think, but actually a way of educating children who live in remote places scattered throughout the Australian outback. They communicate with the teacher via two-way radio and the internet, but the course is otherwise a fairly standard correspondence course. The combination seems to work very well.

I finished my tour with a quick photo-stop at the top of Anzac Hill, where the driver of my bus told me about the Todd River Henley Regatta. As I mentioned before, the Todd River has no water in it. This is how it works: get a boat and a crew, remove the bottom of the boat, then get everyone in it, walk out into the middle of the river bed, and race Flintstones-style down the river. Last year it apparently had to be postponed because there was water in the river.

These Australians are mad.

After the previous day's long coach journey, it was a relief not to have to get up early. The problem with this, or course, is that all the good restaurants and cafes have stopped serving breakfast. Fortunately, after a brief wander down the Todd Mall, I found an excellent café that served breakfast all day.

Refuelled and raring to go, I set off to find my target for the day, the old telegraph station. In the days before telephones, email, and mobile phones, the fastest form of communication was a telegraph line. Unfortunately, there were no lines connecting the south coast of Australia with the north, and so important messages that needed to get to London had to go by boat, which took three months each way (imagine how frustrating it must have been to get back "paper was soggy, please re-send"). The establishment of a telegraph line would cut that time down to mere hours, so it is unsurprising that just two years after the successful mapping of a route between Adelaide and Port Darwin, the Overland Telegraph Line was built. This station in Alice was one of about 12 repeater stations along the length of the line.

The problem was, I had no concept of how far away it was. I'm sure I had read somewhere that it was "a short stroll", but this must have been written by an Australian, because the distance is close to four kilometres. Hot, sweating, and with a greatly increased chance of developing skin cancer in later life, I emerged at the station and duly paid my A$6 admission. The station was well worth the walk - wonderfully preserved, and the tour guides wore period clothing, which was a nice touch.

Unwilling to make the trek back to the town while it was still hot, I wandered over to the water hole nearby, and noticed an artist sitting in the shade of a tree high up on a rocky ridge. Thinking this was a good opportunity to read my holiday books, I climbed and found that the view from the top was excellent, especially considering it wasn't really that high. I read for a couple of hours, before returning to town along the same riverside walking track ('riverside' is an interestingly ambiguous term here since the Todd River rarely has any water in it - it was almost completely dry when I was there, and certainly wasn't flowing). The track was now entirely in the shade, and this made the trip back seem considerably shorter.

This day was never going to start well. At precisely 4am, all the alarms I had set began to go off, which had absolutely no effect on me but brought David and John to startled awakeness, and I was subsequently aroused by a bottle of shower gel on a ballistic trajectory from David's bunk. After stumbling through packing, attempting to be as quiet as possible and failing, I found myself in front of the reception area at quarter to five, feeling very sorry for myself. My mood was brightened moments later when I found out that there was someone having a worse morning than me. Her name was Tammy, and her backpack had broken while packing that morning.

All this was in aid of seeing the King's Canyon, and the tour, once we actually arrived was pretty good, although it was one of those big coaches with a very large number of people. It was also very hot and essential to carry lots of water. If I had come during the summer it would have been unbearable, I'm sure. During the three-hour, six kilometre walk around the top of the canyon and the 'Garden of Eden' waterhole, I took in a number of excellent views and learned a great deal about the formation of the canyon and the plants that live there. Tammy revealed that she is doing a PhD in Tourism and is currently studying interactions between backpackers and aborigines.

The Aboriginal culture seems to thrive on privacy and seclusion, and so the way it is made into a tourist attraction by the many tour companies that operate in the area is the subject of some concern. Over the years aboriginal rights have generally become more respected, and the various parties to the issue seem to be edging towards a more balanced co-existence, although a great deal of damage has already been done, and I doubt that there are many Aborigines still living in the same way as they did before the Europeans arrived. There are many aboriginal philosophies which seem strange to the European observer - extreme dislike of being photographed, reliance on abstract stories for passing on knowledge, and disinterest in charting their own history. Interaction with Europeans can only cause changes to this culture.

The big moment had finally arrived, and there was no avoiding it - I was going to have to climb the damned thing. We caught an 8:50am shuttle bus to the rock, and began to make our way to the base of the climb.

The Aboriginal people native to this area (and who own the rock), known as the Anangu, request that visitors to the rock do not climb it since it is a sacred monument in their culture, and also because they do not want people to injure themselves. The vast majority of people do not heed this request. Climbing the rock is actually a very dangerous business, since there are no steps, and the angle of the incline can reach 45º or more. Five people are known to have died in the attempt to climb the rock (by falling off it), and over twenty are known to have suffered fatal heart attacks as a result of the climb. There are probably many more that are unrecorded because they happen later on in the day.

With these thoughts foremost in my mind, I began to climb up the first part of the rock. The track to the summit is actually more than 3 km long, but the steepest section runs only for the first 600m. Along this section there is also a chain to hold on to, but no effort has been made to make the rock's surface easier to climb. Once past this section, there is a plateau, and then a dotted line painted onto the surface of the rock leads the way for the remainder of the journey to the summit.

The strange thing is that there seem to be a large number of people going up and down the first 600m, and congregating in the plateau at the top of the chain, but very few venture further and complete the journey to the top. During this section, we found ourselves alone on the path, and no-one else arrived until we had been sitting at the summit for some time.

We completed the climb and descent in some 2½ hours, although it's recommended that you actually allow 3 hours for the round trip.

Our flight from Perth to Ayers Rock was scheduled for 7am, a despicably early hour considering that we would have to get up at 5. Somehow we managed it, and said goodbye to Lotta at quarter to six.

Once our flight landed at Ayers Rock, we set about finding somewhere to stay for the night. Since Ayers Rock is not actually a town in itself, all the accommodations and facilities are located in a purpose built town about 15 kilometres away, called Yulara, or "The Ayers Rock Resort". This entire place is owned by a single company, the Ayers Rock Corporation, and so prices are artificially high. We paid A$38 each for three out of four beds in a four share dorm, which was more than three times the price of accommodation in Perth.

After checking in and generally sorting ourselves out, we went straight to the rock for a base tour. This was quite informative, including a number of aboriginal stories and the site of some rock painting, but otherwise unexciting. The tour finished with a view of sunset over the rock, which would have been a lot better if there were not several hundred other people trying to see the same sunset from the same place.