Starting the Topdeck Tour 28/06/16

Kayla and I had to be up really early this morning, as we had to meet the Topdeck Tour group at 6.30am. We're going to be travelling over 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide. We were meeting the others in the reception of Melaleuca, so at least we didn’t have to carry our bags anywhere.

There were a lot more people on the tour than I expected. There are 23 of us in total, including our guide Lisa. I'm with a mix of Australians, English, German, American and Dutch. Most people are from Melbourne. 

We started driving to Litchfield National Park, which was a few hours from the hostel. On the way, Lisa made us ‘speed date’ with each other to get to know one another. We had 3 minutes with each person and then had to take a selfie and switch seats, which was quite difficult on a moving bus.

After a couple of hours, we stopped an ‘outback’ pub called Bark Hut. There were two buffalo outside called Jack and Jill, who came running as soon as we called them. It was a little scary to have a huge buffalo charging towards you but they luckily stopped before they came though the fence. I tried a buffalo pie for the first time which was really nice.

When we got to Litchfield, we went swimming at Buley Rock Hole, which was full of beautiful rock pools and waterfalls. There were little fish in the water which we got to swim with.

We spent about an hour there and then drove round the corner to Florence Falls which was a large plunge pool under two huge waterfalls. 

I got to swim directly under the waterfall which was amazing! 

It wasn’t so much fun walking back up to the bus. There were hundreds of stairs which was really hard work in 33 degree heat.

After the falls we went to look at giant termite mounds. I think it was around 10cm bigger each year. There were hundreds all around the park but we were to see some that were 5-6 meters high! Huge!

After the termite mounds we stopped for some lunch in a little town called Batchelor. We continued driving south and made a pit stop at a giant crocodile for our first group photo.

We did the same thing when we got to the Kakadu National Park sign.

We were staying at a lodge called Aurora in the middle of the park.  I am sharing a room with Kayla, and two other Australians, Kath and Emily from Melbourne.

We had a steak and champagne dinner which was really nice. Champagne and Prosecco cost the same as wine so will definitely be taking advantage. We were so tired from the early morning that we pretty much went straight to bed as soon as we got back to the room.