Up at five again this morning, it's almost beginning to be a habit. We're on our way to Alice Springs, a trip of almost fifteen-hundred kilometres. We'll be traveling down 'the track', The Stuart Highway, all the way down. The Stuart Highway runs North to South across Australia from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. It's named after John Stuart who was the first man to cross Oz overland.

We made a quick stop off at Adelaide River War Cemetary on the way out of Darwin. Amongst the graves is burried McCarthy, a 21 year old from Gravesend, Kent in the UK.

Our tour guides, George the driver and his accomplice, space cadet Jim (not their real names) are the fellas that'll be ferrying the 37 of us down to Alice over the next three days.

Katherine, the 3rd largest town in the territory is home to 8 000 people and is the first place we passed through. The town was flooded in 1988 and when the waters had receded, crocs had taken up residence in the meat section of Woolworths.

Heartsick Heather and I went kayaking in Katherine gorge, known as Nitmiluk (meaning "secader dreaming") by the local Aboriginal people. We paddled two of the 13 gorges that make up the 320 km long system. Katherine Canyon, the 2nd gorge is past two sets of rapids. After paddling up the first set (where most others had failed, "bring it on!") we decided not to drag the boat up the second set. "Shall we swim up it?", Heather inquired. "Ar yeah", I replied. It wasn't 'till afterwards that Emma, who had decided to take the alternative of the boat cruise, informed us that Katherine Canyon had been formed by the Rainbow Serpant traveling down from Arnham land, is over 30m deep and that Aboriginal people never swim there. Oh yeah, and there's crocs in the water - sure, they're freshies, but there's always a chance...

To tomorrow