We arrived in Darwin airport early in the morning and after a little rest decided to explore the city. Very sorry if you live there but... it wasn't the most lively place and just seems to be a an entry/exit point for the major tour destinations. My advice is there's no need to spend time in Darwin. Just pick up your motorhome and start your journey. We booked our 2/3 berth motorhome through this Australia motorhome rentals website a couple of months before we flew in to Australia and picked it up the day after arriving.

Connie and I left Darwin ASAP to begin our great adventure down the west coast, stopping off at tiny little towns and witnessing really amazing landscapes. Every corner, hill and bend opens up to a whole new terrain, with gorges, mountains and views that are out of this world...things I have only ever seen on postcards and holiday brochures were transformed into reality.

Travelling in a motorhome rental is an interesting experience... the sleeping arrangements were just about adequate (as expected) ; the 40 degree heat and bumpy roads and no running water were at times a funny situation and at others just the wrong side of comfortable.
Be prepared for your sleep patterns to change completely. Sometimes we'd drive through the night because it was cooler and gave us more time for sight-seeing at our destination. We took turns with one driving and one sleeping. At other times we would wake up around 6am and feel exhausted by 7pm. When every day is a new adventure it's difficult to have a routine. You can't always live in your campervan so the odd campground or motel room provided us with much needed rest and a chance to have a good wash and do the laundry.

Our first main stop was at Litchefield National park where there were some beautiful, refreshing rock pools and we witnessed the cemetery like scenery caused by the termite mounds. From there we continued to Broome, passing through Batchelor, Kunnanura and Katherine and a variety of places like Timber Creek, Fitzroy crossing and Parabadoo. As we travelled along in our motorhome, some of the small towns on the map which we'd planned to stop at seemed to be full of the promise of adventure and new experience. Unfortunately, many of these were ghost towns with offering little other than an opportunity to stock up on water. Sometimes we just drove straight through.

Broome was really nice...the red rocky mountains against the bright blue sky and turquoise sea was just mesmerising. We chilled for a few days, watched some crab racing at the local bottle stop and visited a crocodile farm. From Broome our journey took us to Kirijini National park where we saw Dale's gorge, probably the most amazing landscape I'd ever seen (although I did say that a lot in Australia). The drop has to be a couple hundred feet with a waterfall at one end and a circular pool at the other. Trekking there took us 3hrs but it was worth it and was a good thing after driving a motorhome for a number of hours. At the end of the day we took turns driving through the night and decided to carry on to Coral Bay. Unfortunately (and let this be a warning to anyone driving through Australia) our fuel-distance calculations were out and we ran out of petrol. Fortunately we were able to sort that out and get our motorhome rental back on the road within an hour with some help from some friendly locals (thanks Wayne, you superhero) and a few phone-calls.

That's pretty much it for a first chapter...we arrived in the beautiful Coral Bay, population 120, with the standard but beautifully hypnotizing clear blue skies, turqoise Indian Ocean and white sandy beaches. Everyone is relaxed, smiling and happy...and our motorhome rental holiday gleamed white with the promise of the next day's journey....

Oh, and one more thing... sometimes we had to avoid the odd cow, kangaroo or snake on the road.