Anyone want to buy a car??!

It's the end of the line. Here we are, in Cairns, designing an advert for our car, which we need to sell in the next couple of weeks both to keep ourselves afloat financially and in preparation for separating and leaving Australia. Sob.

The trip to Cairns was most enjoyable, somewhat surprisingly as we had initially planned to put the pedal to the metal and drive the whole 3,000 odd kilometres in a few days. That plan didn't quite happen...instead it took us a week and a half (still a pretty short amount of time for the vast distance we covered, I suppose) and involved plenty of sightseeing along the way.

We started off with a couple of nights at Kakadu national park. Kakadu is supposed to be Australia's most famous and most frequently visited national park or something - it's huge on the backpacker circuit. Despite strict instructions from Mike that we should take a four-wheel drive tour, as it would enable us to see way more than we could discover for ourselves in the car, we decided to self-drive it (if you saw the tour prices you'd understand). Although there were alot of places we wanted to visit but couldn't, as they were down 4-wheel-drive-only tracks (oh how I've bemoaned "only" having a normal car...) we still had some rather charming moments, including viewing the sunset over the wetlands/Arnham-land escarpment (well ok, we kind of missed the sunset and had to run, but the dusk was beautiful anyway) and sunrise over a birdlife-rich billabong.
Kakadu seems to be one of the best-preserved areas in Australia with relatively little environmental destruction/extinction going on (mind you, when I say "relatively little" there was still a uranium mine there...) There were also several Aboriginal rock-art sites, and we managed to catch two different free talks from rangers about the rock art (it was certainly the most heavily staffed and organised national park I've been to...possibly one of the most crowded as well, worse luck). The visitor centre also had fascinating information about Aboriginal culture. It's such a different way of viewing the world and thinking about things, and it's made harder to understand by the fact that many legends, traditions etc are secret really, so the version that outsiders are given is a ridiculously simplified one...very intriguing, though I really feel like I'm still trying to get my head round what "dreaming" and "dreamtime" actually is.

After two days of walks and camping we fled the mosquitoes (being a wetland area, Kakadu is really infested...we were fighting them off and are all covered in bites) and hit the road. Cathrin, our new German companion, was fantastic to travel with which was lucky as there were a few driving-intensive days, broken by a detour to see the Devil's Marbles, yet another rock formation (still loving those Australian rocks).

Things were just getting a tad monotonous (camp for free at a rest area, get up early, drive drive drive, rinse and repeat) when we hit Townsville on the east coast, and fortuitously bumped into an old travelling-buddy, Sven - a guy we've been bumping into, on and off, ever since we left Perth. He was travelling with two new people, Asa from Israel and Verena from Germany. We arrived in Townsville in the early evening and, on learning that the ferries were still running, decided to take a spontaneous trip over to Magnetic Island, a small island off the coast that's an essential part of the East coast backpacker itinerary. We arrived in the dark, clutching our sleeping bags and some food and drink, but it all worked out fabulously - we decided that as we would miss the official Maggie Island full moon party (it's tonight) we would create our own, so there was much partying, moonlit swimming and dancing on the beach. At about 3am we realised that we didn't know where to sleep and didn't want to have to pay for a hostel, so decided to seek out a secluded beach to sleep on. (Despite being somewhat cloudy and not the sun-filled weather that I always expect from Australia, it was still wonderfully warm and humid). Somehow, this ended up with the six of us taking a 1.6 kilometre hike through the national park, clambering up and down steep, narrow rocky pathways through rainforest...at 3am, whilst far from sober, with 3 torches between us. I managed to lose one thong (sorry, flip-flop) and had to walk barefoot...I also lost my towel, as I discovered next day when I returned from my early morning swim. Luckily both items were located on our walk back...it was a weird but wonderful experience, and waking up on the beach made it all worthwhile.

More photos and news will doubtless follow when I get myself organised...