Totally Tropical

I mentioned in the previous post about it getting pretty hot recently.  I passed the Tropic of Capricorn a few weeks back, but things didn't get really tropical until getting into the Northern Territory. The NE of Western Australia (Kimberley) and the 'Top End' of NT experience a wet-dry tropical climate.  In WA though the scenery didn't change much.  The Kimberley region is very barren, big spaces and huge boab trees.  I passed a lot of forest fires and burnt areas.  As I headed NE, everything got much greener, with palm trees, mango trees and rainforest areas. 

There's still burnt areas, but the larger trees are resistant to fire, so it's just the smaller ones that have to regrow.  Although the burnt parts look damaged and bad to us, remember that this burning and regrowth is vital to the forests and land.  Traditionally, tribes would have burned small areas at certain times.  In some areas this still happens, in others the Department for Conservation has taken on the task.  Burning small areas can also stop larger fires spreading. 

The local tribes in the top end recognise six seasons in the year (more details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_seasons).  At the moment it's the 'build-up' season, hot and humid as the wet (cyclone) season approaches.  In fact, the city of Darwin's location means it's had a tough time of it - being heavily bombed in WWII (as featured in the film 'Australia') and then almost completed destroyed by cyclone Tracey in 1974.

It's been great to see some different scenery after mainly big, dusty dry areas in WA.  I particularly enjoyed Litchfield National Park, which had lovely waterfalls to swim in.

If you look closely at the one below, you may be able to see some flying foxes (type of bat), they were very noisy up in the trees!

Next it's the big red centre for me - similar to the cars of the World Solar Challenge (www.worldsolarchallenge.org) I will be heading South to Adelaide.  It's 3000km of mainly red desert.  Fortunately, I won't be racing so will have time to stop at Uluru (you might know this by another name) on the way.  You can follow one of the teams in the solar car race at http://www.cuer.co.uk/.  I met a couple of this team in Darwin the other day, and am going to see the cars later today, so check back in a few days for more news on this.

TTFN

Miss B