I now feel like I am officially Australian. It’s hard to believe, but in the more than 30 years I have been alive I had never really been ‘out bush’. That all changed over the long weekend. We flew from Darwin into Kununurra which is about 800kms, 40 minutes flight time. The Bungle Bungles are in Purnululu National Park, 180kms south of Kununurra. We took a 2 hour scenic flight (in a four seat Cessna plane!) to have a look from the air. It is difficult to describe just how beautiful the area is.

We stayed at Emma’s Gorge which is part of the El Questro resort, a working pastoral lease. The accommodation was in walled tents (see photo below) which were ludicrously expensive for what they are. Now I know why there are no photos on their website.

Driving to and from Emma’s Gorge was about 90kms, 50 of which were on unsealed, and very corrugated, roads. Luckily my Fiancée had booked a ‘real’ 4WD for us, none of this toy Rav4 crap. We saw countless Boab Trees, wild cows and horses, and even a water monitor. The icing on the cake was a place called Zebedee Springs. It is a series of natural thermal pools that really look like an Oasis. It was almost like a scene from a movie. A truly memorable experience. I am very glad we made the decision to go.

When I was at dinner on Sunday we were discussing various driving distances in Australia. I was explaining to the three others that the distance from Darwin to Alice Springs is almost the same as Melbourne to Brisbane, but my fiancée didn’t believe me. What does one do in these situations? Straight to Google. And here are the stats.

Melbourne to Brisbane: 1,692km
Darwin to Alice Springs: 1,498km
Alice Springs to Adelaide: 1,530km
Darwin to Adelaide: 3,027km
Sydney to Perth: 3,942km (including a stretch of 1,700km on the Eyre Highway)

I got to playing with Google Maps to see how far the greatest driving distance would be across Australia. From the south coast of NSW near the Victorian Border to Port Hedland is about 5,000km via the most direct route, or more than 5,600km via Central Australia. It’s hard to believe that it is all one country. Even more so when I fly from Darwin to Sydney during winter and it drops from a tropical 33 degrees to a wintery 9 degrees, as it did for me last Friday night.

My Fiancée and I had a wonderful weekend in Cairns. We have been very lucky in recent times with both the weather in the places we have visited, as well as on time and problem free flying. We both arrived home (in different states) about 20 minutes earlier than expected. It’s a bit of a bizarre feeling leaving her at an airport when we are both about to board planes, heading in opposite directions.

As predicted we had copious amounts of champagne and some great BBQ’d seafood. Seafood really makes me feel like I am on holidays. I doubt this would be the same if I had it every day however.

I was back at the airport late last night when Jacki flew in. I’m looking forward to getting out and about with her this week. As much as I like having my work colleagues staying with me from time to time, it will be nice to have someone here who I can have a non-work related conversation with in the evenings (over a G&T of course). Jacki has a few things on her list so I aim aiming to help her tick a few of them off. Mindil Beach Sunset Markets and drinks at the Darwin Sailing Club are both on the list.

I started to watch the Eurovision Song Contest last night. My TV was again down to two channels (I had the ceiling fan on…) so I had little choice.

It was no where near as much fun to watch as it has been in the past. There are a few reasons for this:

1) The somewhat controversial but nonetheless hilarious Sir Terry Wogan no longer commentates the English broadcast

2) I didn’t have a European person sitting next to me (aka my Fiancée) to explain the political context behind who countries vote for, like why no one has voted for Germany for two years

3) I was watching it by myself and it isn’t nearly as much fun yelling abuse at the ridiculousness of the acts if there is no one to laugh along with you

Australia has the highest Eurovision television viewership of any non participating country. It says a lot about our multicultural population doesn’t it.

Darwin was originally ‘discovered’ in 1839 by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes onboard HMS Beagle. He is believed to be the first British person to see Darwin Harbour. On two occasions over the past 170 years the Australian Government had contemplated abandoning the region in totality, first during WWII, and again after Cyclone Tracy (which I’ll cover in Part II).

Most Australians are probably not even aware that Australian land was directly affected during WWII, and those who are may not know the full extent. I don’t ever recall this coming up in all my years at School.

At 8:45 on the morning of 19^th February 1942 a squadron of 188 Japanese Planes converged on Darwin and began bombing. This was the first time in Australia’s (then) 154 year history that we had been targeted on home soil. The result of this single day was 251 killed and 400 injured. More than 20 planes destroyed, 10 ships sunk and numerous other vehicles damaged beyond repair.

The first civilian deaths were those of the Post Master General and his entire family when the Darwin Post Office, which is right next door to where I live, took a direct hit.

Parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia’s north were bombed a further 62 times between 4^th March 1942 and 12^th November 1943. It is amazing that we never really hear about this. Peter Garrett, when he had a real job fronting Midnight Oil, sung “our shoreline was never invaded, our country was never in flames” – how wrong he was… and now he’s in Parliament.

The various State Governments began discussing the notion that Australia should abandon the entire northern parts of Australia, a consideration known as The Brisbane Line, if the Japanese were to invade by land. Luckily this never occurred and the idea was dropped. Until Christmas 1974.

My Fiancée just found this article on ninemsn. Truly amazing photos given how shy Koalas are. He must have been very desperate.

It reminded me of another photo that circulated a little while back of a Koala drinking from a garden tap. Given that Koala means ‘no drink’ in the Aboriginal language they must really be feeling the heat.

Now where would I rather be. Alice with the ultra-high temperatures, or Darwin with the rain. A hard choice.

For those of you wondering exactly what we do up here, this is what we are all about. John Kop is our CEO.

‘Store reopens in remote community‘ on ABC TV.

Yesterday four of us from the company went for a day trip to Litchfield National Park. The park is about one and a half hours drive from Darwin and we got permission to use one of the 4WD company cars. Being able to take a ‘proper’ 4WD allowed us to gain access to some pretty spectacular places.

One such place was The Lost City which I found quite amusing given the name of my blog, Lost David. The site is a massive group of sandstone pillars and outcrops, some photos of which are below. The beauty of these sites is that normal vehicles can’t get to them due to the terrain, and this significantly reduces the number of visitors. As a result we were the only people there. Simon and Garfunkel once sang about The Sound of Silence. Now I know what they were talking about.

I am really starting to get a feel for what Australia was like 230 years ago before European Settlement (or European Invasion as some of my Indigenous colleagues call it, half-seriously). I can only imagine what it must have been like for the early explorers seeing these places for the first time. If it weren’t for the marked trail at The Lost City we could easily have thought we were the first white people to ever set foot there. A unique experience indeed.

Well I have returned with all four limbs intact. Kakadu is a truly amazing place, like nothing I have ever seen before. I was in a boat literally 2 metres away from a 4+ metre Crocodile. The guides warn you that a Crocs reaction time is 8 times quicker than that of us snail like humans so the moment was quite daunting. It is quite a surreal experience seeing these prehistoric animals up close (and not behind any glass I might add!).

Some of you won’t believe it, but I even took a one hour scenic flight in a 6 seat light airplane over Kakadu. I felt very brave afterwards, so brave I almost deserved a lollypop as I left the tiny airport.

I have been reading this book called ‘Bureaucrats and Broken Hearts’ which is highly critical of the numerous interventions that have occurred over the years, most recently the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER). At first I had written the author, Tess Lea, off as a pure naysayer, but I am starting to see her point of view. I am not for one minute questioning the work my company is doing to improve indigenous health, as we are seeing some fantastic results already. But more broadly I am questioning the effectiveness of the bureaucratic machinations that the policy makers will have you believe is in the best interest of the Indigenous.

To make my point, I saw paintings in Kakadu that dated back more than 4,000 years. It got me thinking that this land has sustained the Indigenous population for millennia, without our ‘help’. Should we really be interfering? I get the feeling I will return to this topic during the next 10 weeks that I am up here.

A few photos below of Kakadu. I took almost 200 photos in 2 days which gives you an idea how in awe of the place I was.