Ü-Ei Northern Territory

Even though we crossed the border to the Northern Territory some time ago, to be precise on the way to Ayers Rock, which is surrounded by red earth, the Northern Territory remained in my memory mainly as green... and humid... and full of sneaky animals.
Just as quickly as the vegetation had increased again, the climate also changed: 32°. Besides the heat, the humid weather bothered me the most. When we bought 2$ Cornetto ice cream at a gas station and talked to the cashier, one of those people who make you wonder what chain of bad coincidences led them to stand somewhere in the middle of nowhere and hours away from civilization behind the counter of a gas station, about the extreme weather, he dryly commented that it was nothing compared to last week's 54° Celsius (He's used to it).
The heat robbed me of sleep for 2 nights and taking a shower was just useless - 5 minutes later we were all sweaty again. It was disgusting to lie soaked in the campervan in the evening, and I felt more like a slimy snail than a human being. Like a stranded whale, I lay on my back at night to prevent any body part from touching another and another stream of sweat running down my body. In addition, there were countless mosquitoes, which naturally loved the high humidity. The torture started every night after sunset and lasted for almost a week. Unfortunately, I had to realize that my mosquito repellent was a joke and even clothes didn't stop the pests.

At night, we had to choose between mosquitoes or 40° Celsius inside the car. We couldn't find a golden middle ground, so I woke up in the morning wet and covered in mosquito bites. Nights of constant mosquito bites woke me up constantly, and I was internally escalating when the almost 50 mosquito bites per foot (yes, that's how many bites actually fit on a shoe size 39) started to itch as if they had planned it.
Since we spent some time in the car again in the Northern Territory, I could at least catch up on some rest during the long drives. Instead of counting sheep, however, we could only count cows, dead and lying on the side of the road. Gross. One day, we saw 16 cows that had been run over by road trains, and we probably saw all stages of decomposition that a carcass lying in the heat can go through, or rather, die through. Thanks, that's what we wanted to see!
The smoke clouds rising in the distance from the many fires in the Northern Territory provided the adventure factor. What initially gave me a bad feeling peaked at a point where dry grasses were simmering on both sides of the road, and the pungent smoke filled the van through the open windows.

About 500km before Darwin, a sprinkler sent by God provided some cooling, before we lay down in the heated-up van in the evening and then opened the trunk to sleep with all the doors open. Open trunk day, mozzies welcome. During the night, the air had cooled down somewhat, but it only lasted until the sun crawled over the horizon and heated up the surroundings completely again within 10 minutes. Thank God, there was a thermal spring planned for that morning. Confidently, we marched through the resort surrounding the pool, which was hidden in a small forest surrounded by palm trees, and spent 2 hours in the beautiful pool. After successfully sneaking into the resort's showers, we packed up our cars that were now surrounded by peacocks and set off for the infamous Kakadu National Park.

The highlight of the park was grazing on the side of the road a few hundred meters behind the national park entrance sign: a bull with large horns, maybe even a water buffalo. To upgrade Kakadu, let's stick with the water buffalo. The landscape in the hyped park hardly differed from the bushy stuff before, and even the labeled lookouts, well, they were nice but not necessarily breathtaking, as one would expect from a "Top 10 things to see in Australia" national park. What didn't make the day my favorite was, firstly, the message from the car rental that I had to pay 75$ (!!!) because I was speeding (yes, that hurt the backpacker's wallet!). The funny thing? The 75$ were just the fee for the fine. No joke. There is a fee for the fine. The ACTUAL fine arrived a few weeks later. In the end, I paid almost 300$. And I thought 75$ hurt!

In addition, there was the tire change action somewhere deserted in the national park, after Mayk discovered a huge groove in the tire that threatened to tear it. After Mayk, the only man capable of changing a tire, had put a new shoe on our little wreck, we went to the next campsite and grilled our first kangaroo steak. You can eat it, but you don't have to. The evening went again with sweating, scratching, aggressively killing mosquitoes... not great. We all lay in the van by 8:30 pm, and the night was about to become one of the longest ones I have ever experienced. After looking at my phone last at 1:30 am and hoping that the night would soon be over, I woke up again at 3:30 am and stared at the ceiling until 6:30 am when the sun finally rose, and I could get up. Yep, some nights were really unbearable.

The park could still score some points with some well-preserved and detailed paintings by the Aborigines, but during our drive through the rest of the park, we were disappointed by several roads that were closed due to floods and crocodiles. After 2 more or less worth seeing lookouts that remained, we left the famous Kakadu National Park. In the end, the park unfortunately didn't meet our expectations at all. But I have to admit, once again, we are too spoiled when it comes to amazing landscapes, which I often want to slap myself for.

An absolute highlight of the entire Australia trip was waiting for us a few hours away in the Adelaide River: crocodiles. To finally see a crocodile, which we had already been warned about on countless signs (#be crocwise), we took part in a one-hour boat tour, where we would supposedly see jumping crocodiles. Luckily, there were only 8 tourists on the boat, plus a super cool guide who wore a cowboy hat adorned with wild animal teeth. During his briefing, he mentioned that crocodiles react to bright colors and wished us good luck with the neon orange swim rings in case of an emergency. The participants' laughter was half hearty, half nervous, and half panicky. Well, our guide didn't make a joke. Given the fact that there are 7000 crocodiles living in the 150km long river (which means almost 5 crocodiles, watching you, within 100m to the shore) I simply relied on the skills of the boat company and fate in general. We cruised along the river in zigzag lines until the engine suddenly stopped. Our guide pointed to a tiny spot in the water that hardly created a wave. And indeed, the small spot, which had exactly the same color as the dirty brown of the river, came closer, and from a few meters away, we could see 2 yellow eyes. Our guide warned us at some point not to stretch our arms over the boat. His formulation, not the crocodile that he attracts, but the 3 others that observe us, would pull us into the water, fascinated me indescribably. The idea that the crocodiles see us like a few fish sticks on a floating plate made the whole tour exciting until the last minute.
Our guide lured the crocodile with a piece of meat on a fishing line, and it swam incredibly close to our boat, right up to the bow. If I had stretched out my arm, I could have touched the beautiful scales, the animals came so close to us. But since crocodiles react 40 times faster than humans, I kept my hands to myself. Finally reaching the fishing line, the crocodiles actually jumped out of the water and snatched the meat from the line in the air. The photos that were taken during that moment - awesome!
During the tour, we even managed to locate the second largest crocodile in the river: 6.1 trudged lazily through the thickest mud to the shore right next to our boat. Even though the relationship between the crocodiles and our guide often seemed familiar, he always moved our boat away from the giant, which sometimes seemed a little too close to our guide.

Lastly, our guide demonstrated why you should never go near the water at fenced-off shores. On the one hand, crocodiles hear footsteps from miles away, and when you finally stop, it signals to the animal that you are standing at the shore. We drove the boat completely to the shore and waited. Each of us searched the water for a crocodile, but nothing moved far and wide. Just as we stopped looking for the crocodile, a gigantic head emerged one meter away from the boat, and each of us was visibly shocked that we didn't see the animal coming a second before it appeared right in front of us. If someone had just stood here with their feet in the water, no chance and dinner time for the crocodile.
The art of these animals to approach completely unnoticed was truly impressive and will probably stay in my mind forever.
Our guide threw the remaining pieces of meat into the water, and countless eagles dived at them. One spectacle after another! That made up for the lame Kakadu Park. The evening was once again... you can imagine. Let's just leave it aside.
The next morning we headed to Darwin, where I could finally write to my family again!
After a little stroll through Darwin, we realized that the party was definitely not happening here. In addition, swimming was prohibited everywhere due to the numerous crocodiles, except for a small section in the sea that was secured with nets. But when we made our way to the little lagoon, we discovered a wave pool right by the sea. The pool immediately stole our hearts, and with thousands of childhood memories in our heads, we spent the afternoon there. Armed with swim rings, we had a lot of fun among mostly small kids. Later, I even got to talk to my daddy, who had been out taking photos in the early morning, and then I called mom and dad, which always makes me incredibly happy.
After a wonderful shower, we were given a box full of groceries by a kind of tour guide, who treated us poor backpackers to a feast of burgers the next day!
In the morning, we took our car to the doctor to fix the things on our list that weren't working.
Then, almost like new, we raced with our van to Litchfield National Park, which is unknown but far surpassed the joke of Kakadu. First, we made our way to Rockhole, where people bathed in the pools between the little waterfalls along a stream. In the end, the waterfall created something like a natural whirlpool, which was an absolute dream (for us sweaty and disgusting backpackers). The almost unbeatable pool was then even topped by the Florence Falls, which landed in a small lake surrounded by high cliffs after a long free fall. After over a week of dry outback, swimming on that day was the greatest gift we could have received.

The next day, it was already the last day in the Northern Territory. After a laundry session, our journey took us through the beautiful Gregory National Park (yes, in Australia the highway occasionally leads through national parks) to the border of Western Australia. It greeted us with a smiling lady who stuck a list of things to throw away out of the window directly into our faces. That's a good start!