Well the day finally dawned, and by that day I mean Sunday the 21st September – the very last and final day of my twenties. Doesn’t time just fly by waaaay too quickly? As many of you know I had this trip planned for a long while and always maintained that I wouldn’t mind turning thirty because I’d be away backpacking and living the life of a 20 year old. I was wrong. Dear god, I don’t think I could have taken it any worse!! All was going to plan until the first day of September and from then on every time I saw, wrote or heard the date, mild to moderate panic set in, temporarily but steadily getting worse every day. Am I being overly dramatic? Of course I am 🙂

September 22nd at 09.15, if I remember what my mammy said correctly, was when I was born. This year it fell on a monday but due to working on the tuesday we decided to head out on Sunday night, which for me was quite appropriate because I was commiserating the end of my twenties while the people around me were celebrating the beginning of my thirties 🙂 Had a great night. Kate went to great lengths throwing a pre-pub party in our apartment and it was just lovely so many, many thanks to her. Steve was over for a week also and it was really nice to have someone from home around for my big (dreaded) day. I also received some lovely cards, texts and pressies from home so many thanks to those folks also.

And now it’s done. I’m 30. Boo to it. No going back. I don’t feel 30 but I definitely look it with all these hours I’m working. I must be old though because a couple of the younger girls at work, who’ve been there for months, ask me what they should be doing!!! At my night job in the Italian restaurant, I asked my boss should I ask a couple of girls for identification as they were ordering wine and he said “come on Linda, they’re fine” Hmmmmm I still maintain they looked about 15!

So, as I said, Steve was around for the week and I took some time off work. We headed to Crocosaurus which is right in the middle of Darwin’s Central Business District. It has loads of geckos, snakes, long neck turtles and all kinds of crocs to look at.

 

Unfortuntately my camera died so I didn’t get any pics of crocs. Will have to make a return journey but it was a pretty cool place. We also went to see some jumping crocs. It was pretty much the same as when myself and Kate saw them as part of our Kakadu trip. This time though at the very end of the cruise two crocs got out of the water and on to the bank of the river and it was pretty cool to see them out of the water sizing each other up!!

Scary, eh?

Myself, Steve, Kate, Alex and Shane also rented a car and headed off to Litchfield National Park for the day. Our first stop was to see the magnetic termite mounds which are really amazing….

….we saw a few of these on our way to Kakadu previously. The amazing thing is the termites build these to align perfectly north to south to help them cope with the extreme weather conditions. It looks like a graveyard, huh?

We cooled off with a swim at Buley Rockhole afterwards. It was pretty busy there, lots of tourists at the weekend I guess but still lovely and refreshing being in the water.

We also went to see Tolmer Falls where you can’t swim so it’s such a tease to look at the really inviting water. These falls are almost drying up as we are coming to the very end of the dry season in the Northern Territory. It’s hard to imagine what they might be like by the end of the wet season but apparently it’s impressive and really loud!!!

We got a lot of swimming in that day though at Florence Falls and Wangi Falls…..

…..it’s a real treat to be in the water as you pretty much can’t swim in the Northern Territory due to either crocs or killer box jellyfish!!!

Anyhoo that’s the scoop for now.

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607597677682/  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607661338444/and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607874171226/