I headed north, passing the Flinders Ranges on the left while traveling towards Port Augusta and on to Coober Pedy- the opal-"capital".....people build their houses beneath the earth to get away from the heat, but more important to get rich while digging for opals...however, it's not allowed to mine in the city center anymore, so whenever someone finds opals close to the home they just extend the house for another room or two....after staying there for a night I kept on traveling north towards Alice Springs, seeing the same landscrape for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles...for 2 days now, red soil, bushland, if you're lucky you see some emu's or camels further up north..... Alice Springs looked so green!!!- It had been raining there for days before I arrived, so that there even was water in the river, which may sound odd (as I would assume a river is something that holds water) but it makes the locals freak out as it occurs just about 4 times within a year....and lots of Aboriginal- people over there, sitting in the shade of the trees close to the river, some begging in the streets in front of the shopping mall. After a visit at the Flying Doctor Service I went on a 3-day safari to see Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. We hiked around Uluru, you were even allowed to climb it in the afternoon, which indicates that the weather forecast must have been below 36 degrees, so we had luck with the weather too, nothing you couldn't deal with...we had an amazing guide, who stopped along the road to dig for Witchity Grubs which live in the roots of some bushes/trees and used to be yummy food for the Aboriginal people....I wouldn't want to have them every day tough...we bought a kanguru tail on the way and the guide prepared it in the traditional way in the fire in the evening, another thing I wouldn't wanna have every day, pretty greasy......we slept in swags under the stars, watching the southern cross, many shooting stars, there was even a comet with a long shining tail to be seen in those days... getting up around 4 each morning to see the sunrise at Uluru or to start hiking early before it gets to hot, climbing up Kings Canyon, go for a swim in the "Garden of Eden"( a waterhole in the canyon ), see the "Lost City" ( rock formations that look like beehives or houses) and do the Valley of the Winds - walk at Kata Tjuta. After getting back to Alice, I flew to Darwin, pretty amazing how many miles you can travel in a plane in less than two hours, my bum really appreciated it, and I think I had enough IMPRESSIONS during the last 5 days, doing more than 2000 k's !! Darwin and the wet-season, which is actually running late a little this year, but it's still very warmand hunid. We headed to Kakadu-NP for 3 days, we went to see crocodiles jumping in the Adelaide River, Aboriginal paintings on rocks, hiked up to several outlooks to watch thunderstorms build up at the horizon, swam in the different pools of Waterfall Creek to get rid of the sweat and witnessed how the waterfalls/waterdrops between the different pools raised within a minute to turn the lovely waterholes into foaming whirlpools...time to get out! At least we got an impression of the wet season- it started to rain hard that afternoon, but who cares where the water comes from as long as it takes the sweat away. We did an amazing hike the last day- climbed along some cliffs which I thought was pretty scary (here speaks the vimp again), especially as the cliffs were made of sandstone, ruined another pair of trousers and got lots of scratches and blue spots on my legs, but I was happy I did it. After relaxing a day in Darwin I went to see Litchfield NP today, that was a more relaxed trip-having a look at termites mounds and going for a swim under some smaller waterfalls or just enjoying a "back massage" in some natural "pools". I'll leave Darwin tomorrow, heading down the Westcoast!!!!!