So for a few years I concentrated on work, started off by just getting a job and slowly worked towards getting the teaching job I wanted. So this meant time off from Travel.

2009 was a pretty rough year for me, and by the September term break I was desperately in need of a break, so the ideal solution was to go visit my bestie who lives in Darwin.

I had been to the NT before with a school trip, but we did Alice Spings and Uluru, this time I headed way up to the top end.

Having never been there before, I wanted to see everything, so we got a 4WD, a bunch of camping gear and headed off…
We did a bit of a round trip, we left from Darwin and headed South East towards Kakadu national Park. We checked out the rock art at Ubirr and witnessed an amazing sunset. We did the Yellow River cruise and saw some crocodiles. We kept heading through the Kakadu national park and checked out several waterfalls – Gunlom was my favourite. There was a campsite just near a billabong, and a waterfall fell from rocks high above into the billabong. There was a track you could hike up to get to the top of the rocks/waterfall, and up there were just an amazing series of rockpools with beautiful warm water, each pool had a little waterfall cascading into the next until it went over the edge. STUNNING!!

We continued on our merry way and reached Katherine, where we did a Kaherine Gorge cruise. Again, it was beautiful, the rocks are such rich colours and the water looks so serene but is scary at the same time – you always wonder what lurks beneath.

Katherine was our turning point, and from here we headed back in a northerly direction. Rather than returning via Kakadu, we decided to visit Darwin’s other major national park: Litchfield.

Litchfield was full of amazing waterfalls. Tjaynera falls were stunning as they were rather remote, and were very high falls. Wangi falls were beautiful, but being very accessible they were also very popular. Florence Falls was also gorgeous, but by far my favourite was Buley Rockholes. Buley Rockholes was again just a series of rockpools, one cascading into the next.

Heading back we went and checked out the jumping crocodiles.

Back in Darwin we checked out some local sights, the wave pool, croc-a-saurus cove, mindil market.

Soaking up some sunshine and enjoying the love of good friends was just what I needed!!