Back to the real world

Obviously I am back from my trip to Darwin and the Northern Territory, I have been so overwhelmed by the amount of photos I took, I have been struggling to decide how to approach blogging about my trip.

I am going with the NIKE method - just do it

I have never had a holiday on my own before, this trip was a new and exciting adventure for me, I have been married for 22 years and I have not spend more than 3 nights away from HWMBO. I am so happy that I clicked really well with most of the people on the tour. 

Anyone who has been to the top end of Australia know that November is the worst time to travel, it is hot and humid, the build up to the wet season, this is exactly why we went at this time of year, the plan was to witness and photograph some of Australia's best lightning. That was the plan...but alas there was a huge lightning storm the week before we got there :( . South east Queensland had a massive storm with lightning while I was away - just my luck! I missed the lightning show on our last night in Darwin, I had a few drinks at dinner and just crashed. I will have to brave the weather during the summer and get my lightning photo more local.

Our first night we went to Fannie Bay for Sunset, the very first thing I noticed was there were children playing in the water, I thought the fear of salt water crocodiles was so in built in NT no parent would let their kid anywhere near the ocean. I was a brave soldier and got my feet wet too *** I thought the crocs would go after the kids as they were smaller and tastier *** 

The light on the cliffs at Fannie bay was amazing, photos don't do it justice. I had a play with some crabs and my macro lens.

Day 2 was spent walking around Darwin while waiting for the rest of the tour group to join a few early birds who arrived a day early. One of my favourite photos was taken on our first group outings, a rainbow bee eater happily posed in beautiful light for us, I think all of us got a great shot of this guy with his dragonfly dinner.

Sunset at Mindil Beach

I am not a morning person, never have been, never will be, I have to get up early for work and I do it because I have too, not because I want too. It was a bit of a struggle for me to get up for a sunrise at Lee Point, I am glad I did it was beautiful.

Fogg Dam was out next stop where I got my first look at Brolgas in the wild, I was lucky to have a seat on the bus and a clean window to get a good shot of them before they walked out of range.

We ended the day with a 3 hour cruise on the Mary River where we got our first glimpse of both salt water and fresh water crocodiles. I captured a pair of magnificent sea eagles and a jabiru. As the jabiru was not is a great position to be photographed the boat driver tried to scare him into flying away to give us a chance to get an inflight photo, when guide drove the boat into the water lilies the jabiru just calmly walked further up the bank - fortunately to a better location for photos.

To avoid making this a really long post, I will say good bye and stay tuned for more Top End Adventures tomorrow