Darwin Flight

I’m not sure what happens at 30,000ft perhaps the air is clearer, the gravitational pull of earth just that little lighter or maybe it’s because I’m completely petrified that clarity seems to occasionally occur.

As the ground disappears beneath a blanket of cloud, weightlessness prevails, mentally as well as physically . I cannot do anything now that will affect the future or the past, I have to be at one with myself.

“Love Yourself” was this flights message.

We can spend hours working on business and financial planning, pouring love into our children and partners, devouring our past to get the most out of our future but if we don’t look after us, me, I, Self, what use are we to others?

Arriving in Darwin after circling for 45 minutes to avoid the storm it was hot, wet and windy, exactly how I remember it! I was happy to see Shenanigans still there, the word, the pub is exactly what Darwin was for me 15 years ago and again now.

My back packing days here in Darwin were pre and post my time working in Kakadu. Before Kakadu I was a little lost, on my own after traveling up the Wild West Coast camping on beaches, working at Cable Beach in Broome and melon picking in Kununurra. Post Kakadu was when I really started to know and rely on myself, the independent traveller that had immersed herself in the red dust.

There was an endless amount of love and shenanigans in Jabiru, Kakadu that inspired my second book, wide eyed travelers learning their truth and seeking solace in the arms of others.

It was such a pleasure to become a part of the diverse community in Jabiru that I couldn’t quite bring myself to go back this time, I knew those faces had gone and that the warmth of their energy would have disappeared also.  So, I stuck to the city with its slow pace, walking through the soup like weather, the loud shouts here and there and the many pubs that quench a never ending thirst.

I think Darwin inspires independent thinking and this girl is claiming just a little of that back every day.

Three Botanical Gardens and the Things I Didn’t Write

When I travelled around Australia in  2003 my friends bought me a diary to write. I had three very different experiences in three Botanical Gardens so I thought I would dig out my diary and reminisce.  Searching through my notes I realised I didn’t document them! The people, places and events that interested me then are definitely not what interests me now. I will have to write from memory.

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Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park

My characters in book two are in the amazing Kakadu National Park at the moment. So as I sit in the café in Melbourne, the rain thundering on the tin roof.  I can’t help feeling the weather getting warmer and more humid with every word I type.  The buzz of people around me fuelling my fingertips.


What a wonderful place Kakadu is, whilst I was working there I was lucky enough to share accommodation with three Aboriginal Australian girls. They were amazing spirits, such energy, always smiling, laughing and joking, always so much to say and always so dramatic.

There were many Australians from far and wide and immediately I recognised their accents as very different from each other.  There were a few Kiwi’s and some European’s, Indonesians, Malaysians. What a wonderful soup of souls we were.

As with a lot of lifes rich experiences I took it for granted at the time. When going back to the diary I kept, I was much more interested in recording the wildlife and surroundings than the late night deep conversations of these wonderful people. Oh how we change! If I could travel back in time I would record all of our chats, the facial expressions, the little nuances of these colourful individuals.


I have so many questions to ask of these people that have now probably little or no memory of me. I will have to rely on my recollection and add a bit of artistic license to a few stories. That is the beauty of writing, the thin line between fact and fiction is really only there for the writer to know and reader to guess at.

So as I wonder around the streets and cafe’s of Melbourne, excuse me if I bump into you, I’m not reading my iPhone or trying to get your attention. My mind is simply in Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park. The heat is burning my shoulders, as I scan the red dust for snakes. Watching the heat haze on the horizon which makes the gum trees look like a mirage. The escarpment seems to reach so far, I can see the curvature of the earth. I climb to the top of Gunlom Falls my back wet with sweat and dip my toe into the cooling water, wondering if Crocs can climb. Then I immerse my body in the refreshing serenity of the pool. The huge boulders acting like armchairs to sit upon. If I am about to be eaten by a Croc what a wonderful place for it to happen!

Melbourne is a distant memory, just the place my physical form inhabits as I type away at my laptop. I may be present in Melbourne but my presence is undeniably in Kakadu.

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