Traveling Rockhopper

When we’re planning our trip to Australia, I wanted to see Uluru and my husband wanted to go to Tasmania. We visited both places and weren’t disappointed.

Kakadu National Park is home of Aboriginal rock art dating back 20,000 years (one of the examples in today’s picture).
For me, it’s the most interesting part of Kakadu NP. Of course, nature here is nice, but this Aboriginal rock art is much more special.

Another interesting and biggest national park in Australia is Kakadu NP.
You find here rain forests, wetlands, waterfalls, and Aboriginal rock art. 🙂

What’s the official language in Australia?
-The answer is quite interesting, because it’s not English. Australia has no official language. About 80% of the people speak English; other languages are indigenous and minority ones.

I have to say, I was a bit surprised how big area of Australia is covered by rain forests.
So if you like “jungle”, you have to visit Australia. 🙂

In the Litchfield National Park you’ll find an amazing scenery made by termites!
In today’s picture you see an example of magnetic termite mounds. No, it’s not a graveyard. 😉 Doesn’t it look unique? Some of the mounds are small, others are quite big, even about two meters tall.

If you’re in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, don’t miss Litchfield National Park.
Especially if you like waterfalls! 🙂

Kangaroo Island is one of the best places in Australia to see native wildlife, e.g., koalas, kangaroos, sea lions, and many birds.

Kangaroo Island is a nice island, “nearby” Adelaide.
It’s 155 km long, so it’s not so small.
I think, a few days should be enough to explore the island and visit its most interesting sites.

In Australia, I learnt that not each “kangaroo” is a kangaroo. 😀
There are different kinds of kangaroo, but generally speaking kangaroos are “big kangaroos”. “Smaller kangaroos (intermediate size)” are called wallaroos and “small kangaroos” are wallabies.

In Australia, you’ll find many many waterfalls! One of the most stunning ones is Wallaman Falls from the Wet Tropics UNESCO World Heritage Area. Wallaman Falls is the highest single-drop waterfall in Australia (268 meters).

If you’re in Sydney, don’t miss Blue Mountains; you can drive there in about two hours. 🙂
Blue Mountains is a nice area for hiking or relaxing. You can find here many plants in a forest, rock formations, cliffs, caves, waterfalls, etc.

“The Twelve Apostles” are limestone pillars. You’ll find them along the Great Ocean Road. However, there are not 12, some of them already collapsed. Well, it’s still a very nice coastal area and scenic drive; worth visiting!

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the main attractions in Australia. It’s the world’s largest coral reef and simply stunning! It’s an unforgettable experience to snorkel or dive there. However, there is also a sad part about it, people often kill the reef simply by touching it! So please, be careful while observing any reef.

Dingo is a name of a native Australian dog.
When I was in Australia, I didn’t really expect to meet dingo, but we’re lucky to spot them. Dogs look friendly, but they’re still wild animals, so it’s better not to play with them etc.!

p.s. Do you know what dingo dogs like to eat?
I’ll show you on the 17th of January. 😉

This beautiful (and harmless) lizard can be seen in the Red Centre in Australia. It’s called Ngiyari Thorny Devil (Thorny Dragon).
How do you like it?

There are many kinds of scorpions in Australia. And often they are relatively harmless.
One of the aggressive ones, is Desert scorpion (seen in today’s picture).

The best part of rainy summer in the Red Center was the possibility to see beautiful desert covered by flowers! Amazing view!
(Temperatures were also much more pleasant than a typical ~40C.)

I visited Australia in December and January, so summer time. However, I had a unique experience by seeing the Red Centre in rain and even with floods! For tourists, there were good and bad sides of this, e.g. waterfalls on Uluru looked nice, but some roads looked like the one in the picture (or worse!) so it wasn’t possible to use them.

Kata Tjuṯa (Olgas) is an interesting group of large rock formations (“heads”) located just 25km from Uluru, in the Red Center, the Northern Territory in Australia.

I have to admit, before going to Australia, I didn’t hear so much about Kata Tjuta, I knew only Uluru. After visiting both sites, I’m not so sure which one is more impressive…
Definitely, both are worth visiting!