Australia with Vanni - by Daniele Somenzi

Australia with Vanni We land at Darwin coming from Singapore with Tiger Airways; the time is really bad, 4 in the morning, but soon the light arrives and we reach the Barramundi Hotel in town. I wander around Darwin during the day with Vanni, we go to mass and also get caught in a loud downpour. The next morning a minibus takes us to the train station a few kilometres south of Darwin, where my brother and I board the legendary train The Ghan. We set off and after 6 hours comes the first and only stop at Katherine, to visit Katherine Gorge with a boat trip included, very beautiful. Then we continue by train in 35-degree heat outside, all night long, arriving the next morning at Alice Springs. Here we sadly leave the train, but here begins the second part of the adventure: we rent a Nissan Patrol and set off for the outback, the interior where only 2 cars a day pass through.

We sleep on a farm that owns 2 land properties, one of a million acres and one of a million and a half acres, and about 4000 cows. The next day we enter Queensland from the Northern Territory, with a change of time zone. The car has some trouble with the diesel filter, but we sort it out at a mechanic affiliated with Avis in Mt Isa, changing the filter. We continue and before dark, a swim in the billabong with freshwater prawns. Then we spend another night in a small motel in a village lost in the middle of nowhere. The next morning we head north, where Vanni and I ford a road flooded by heavy rain, and we take the chance for a swim, keeping an eye out for crocodiles. In the evening at a roadhouse we eat a fine steak and decide to drive all night. Here we come across 2 big snakes on the road; we stop and I even manage to touch one on the tail.

We arrive the next morning at Darwin, where we spend the last night. bye