Australia 3: Is She Still Talking About This??

Welcome to the third and final installment of my Australian adventure series.  As with most third installments, this will either kill the franchise or leave the door open for countless sequels that will kill the franchise much more slowly and painfully.  Personally I prefer a quick death, so to coin a tired, worn-out phrase from every tired, worn-out action movie, "let's do this."

Wait, have you read the first two installments yet?  If not, scroll down and get caught up, and then "let's do this."

The last leg of my journey took me to Darwin in the Northern Territory, named after Charles Darwin himself.  You wouldn't think a town named after him would be a bustling metropolis, and you'd be right, but it's not the hick town you'd think it would be either.  It's actually one of the most rapidly developing towns in Australia.  They have frozen yogurt and everything.  Shame on you and your hurtful stereotypes.

Darwin is close to several national parks (it's important to note that in Australia "close to" means a two hour drive).  Our first stop was a cruise on a crocodile infested river, or so we were told; in reality we saw all of two crocodiles, just sunning themselves on the riverbank like they were living at their mom's house collecting unemployment.  We saw lots of birds, but they didn't even try to eat smaller animals or each other.  The only animal that ended up dead was the rather sizable crane that hit our windshield, proving once again than man is the ultimate killing machine.

We went hiking in Kakdu National Park where we saw the world's oldest graffiti, otherwise known as Aboriginal rock art.  Our guide also introduced us to a lot of ancient Aboriginal home remedies, like crushing the leaves of a green ant nest to use as a decongestant.  He also said the green ants were a great source of vitamin C and yes, we all did eat some green ants and they did taste like citrus.  No, I don't know if the guide was just messing with us as part of an elaborate series of dares between him and his fellow guides.  Since tour guides adhere to a strict code of silence, we'll never know.

In Litchfield National Park we swam in a bunch of different swimming holes, some of which are inhabited by crocodiles during the wet season.  However, it was the dry season, and since we don't live in a terrible horror movie or on Animal Planet, we enjoyed many refreshing swims without a single fatality.  Not only that, we can all brag about swimming in the same waters as crocodiles, even if it wasn't at the same time.  That's still badass, right?

Well, badass or not, at the end of my trip I still felt incomplete.  I'd seen plenty of wild animals including horses, donkeys, bats, kangaroos, wallabies, emus, and dingos, but I still didn't see the one animal the Northern Territory is famous for: the saltwater crocodile (I don't count those lazy embarrassments from the river cruise).  So on the last day of my trip I went on one last river cruise, one that guaranteed not just crocodiles, but Spectacular Jumping Crocodiles!  And jump they did; the guides dangled chunks of meat from a pole, making the crocs jump for it several times before they gave it to them.  It was kind of funny seeing a 5'2" woman making a 12" croc her bitch, but ultimately the joke will be on her.  You can see it in the croc's eyes.  They're saying "soon bitch, soon..."

And now finally, we come to the end of the long and winding dirt road.  Thanks for sticking with me, even if you only did it because you came too far to quite without feeling you wasted your time.  See you again real soon!