Darwin Waterfront...Eating Kangaroo & Crocodile 25/06/16

Even though I was exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep last night! I was woken up at around 1am by a call from Student Finance. Before I left, I had sent a complaint so needed to take the call.

I went back to bed at 1.30ish, but woke up wide awake at 5am. Jet lag is definitely kicking in! I stayed in bed until 7am, and then headed outside to write and watch the sunrise.

I skyped mum and Grahame for a bit and then headed back to the room for a nap.

When I woke up it was 11ish and so me, Sam and Kez headed to the pool to sunbathe. I met two Irish girls called Becky and Chloe who had also just arrived in Darwin. I stayed at the pool for a few hours but the heat was so hot I needed to come in. I have tan lines already :D

Sam told me that the travel shop next door had free wifi, which was annoying after I had paid for wifi at the hostel. It was much quicker than ours so I managed to chat with a few people from home.

I had arranged to meet Kayla, another girl who is doing the outback tour I have booked. We went straight out to Coles, and we managed to sort out an Australian phone for me.

We then started walking to the Darwin Waterfront, which I heard had a beach and pool area. We ended up going in the completely wrong direction so it took us over an hour. We didn’t mind though as we got to see a war memorial and a few little beaches on the way

.

The waterfront was really nice. Kayla and I bought some gelato (which had loads of dairy free flavours :D) and went and sat by the water. We wandered around for a bit and went to cool off in the water.

For dinner, we went to a steak restaurant called Outback Jacks. I ordered a few ‘outback’ tasters of crocodile, kangaroo and buffalo steak. Kangaroo was my favourite! We each had a mango cocktail which was so strong I felt the effects after a few sips!

After dinner we headed back to the hostel. We went on wifi for a bit outside but soon realised we could smell smoke. It turns out one of the cars in our hostel car park had been set on fire which caused a lot of commotion. We decided to go to bed early as we have our crocodile cage dive first thing in the morning :D

Arriving in Australia 23/06/16-24/06/16

I FINALLY made it to Australia!!! :D After what felt like days of travelling I landed in Darwin at 3pm Australia time.

The night before my flight I went and stayed in a Travel Lodge with mum and Grahame. It was definitely a good idea, as I was much less stressed on the morning of my flight knowing we were only 10 minutes away from the airport. Lucky that we did, as the roads in London were flooded which would have made travelling a nightmare!

When we got to Heathrow I started to feel really nervous. I think it suddenly hit me that I was leaving home for such a long time. I did the exact same thing as when I went to Africa and started to panic about what I was doing. As soon as I went through security I felt fine, but saying goodbye was a lot more emotional than it was for Africa.

As soon as I got through security I headed straight for the plane. I was one of the first groups that got called to board and so I ended up being one of the first people on the plane. I was really lucky to get a seat on upper deck, which was much less crowded, especially as I ended up with no one sat next to me.

As the weather was bad, we ended up being delayed by around 45 minutes on the runway, which was worrying for me as I knew I only had an hour spare to catch my connecting flight in Singapore. I ended up being on the plane for around 14 hours.

The flight was really dull. After watching Joy, the 5^th Wave, The Force Awakens, Friends, The big Bang Theory and Sex and the City, I was sick of TV. As much as I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep and so I was exhausted by the time I got to Singapore. I do think that Singapore Airlines are the best company I have ever flown with. The flight attendants were great and the food we got was much nicer than any other flight I’ve been on.  

I didn’t have any time to look around at the airport. As soon as I got off the plane I had to run like the kid off Love Actually to make the connecting flight, which must have looked amusing for everyone else considering all the bags I was carrying. I did manage to talk to mum on the train to the connecting terminal which was nice.

The next flight was around 5 hours and on a much smaller plane. There were no TV screens, so I had to read and listen to music for most of the time. I normally wouldn’t mind that, but after almost 24 hours of travelling, I just wanted to get there. I was really lucky again to have no one sat next to me, but still didn’t manage to fall asleep. It would have been difficult, as there was an alarm going off in someone’s cabin baggage stored in the overhead lockers. It stopped after around half an hour, but was still really annoying.

When I landed in Darwin, I went through passport control really quickly. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I realised how hot it was. It was around 34 degrees, but it felt like you were in a sauna. I got a taxi to take me to my hostel, Melaleuca on Mitchell on Mitchell Street.

All everyone was talking about was the results of the EU referendum. When I checked in, the receptionist told me how the pound to dollar conversion rate had dropped already. Great! I was really disappointed with the result. I voted remain, and think that as a country, there are far more benefits to being in the EU than out of it!

I was really surprised by how nice this hostel is. I’ve read some dodgy reviews about hostels in Darwin and so I wasn’t sure what to expect. So far, it seems clean and the people are really friendly. I am sharing with a Norwegian girl Marie, Sarah and Rachel from California, and two English girls called Sam and Kez.

I did have a nightmare when I arrived as I realised my card wasn’t working. It turns out I had been using the wrong pin, but I still had to spend almost 2 hours trying to sort it out. All of my emails and Facebook account locked me out as I was accessing them from abroad. I had to go through loads of security checks which took ages with the limited wifi signal. Luckily mum and Grahame managed to sort it out for me, but it was definitely stressful!

The only downside to this hostel is that there isn’t free wifi. It costs $4 for 24 hours, so I am going to have to limit what I use. The hostel has a rooftop bar and pool, which becomes a party during the evenings. It is quite loud, but my room is at the back of the hostel so I can’t hear much. I didn’t want to go to sleep straight away, but after the card drama I was knackered.

I ended up going to bed at 8ish Australia time, after I’d been awake for around 30 hours.