Flying over a Martian landscape of red dry deserted swathes of seemingly hostile land, I wondered if the indigenous population could also fly as, looking down, I could clearly see inspiration for the distinctive aboriginal art form.
The darker sections were covered in tiny dots, the bushes, and in other red areas there are long parallel lines – hewn by flash flooding. There are amazing shapes made by salt pans and dried out river beds.
It is the build-up to the rainy season in Darwin now and we saw the huge clouds winding up
Arriving in Darwin we were greeted by a blast of hot tropical air laden with that heavy moisture we felt in Singapore. We picked up another enormous car and drove to our hotel.
We have a lovely view of the empty beach and empty sea. A sign warns of box jellyfish and says : don’t swim. There are also crocodiles.
Fortunately the hotel thought to make its own beach!
We enjoyed this huge wonderful crocodile painting at Darwin airport evoking the ancient spirits of the Dreamtime:
David, however seems to be communing with the spirit of Dame Edna Everidge:
We relaxed today and noticed very different birds already including many long legged masked lapwing complete with hanging yellow wattles on its cheeks. (not my photo)
We did venture onto the beach to enjoy the tropical sunset.
Gorgeous views from the air. We were also impressed by the closeness of that arid but varied nd so colourful landscape to the indigenous paintings. Watch out for crocs and jelly fish. We read in one guide book we should carry milk to the beach as an antidote to jelly fish stings. We didn’t!