Broome to Darwin

My first thought about Broome was that I was going to die - the place was sooooo hot. The humidity was unbelievable, so we spent most of our time seeking out places with aircon. Although this was fairly limited as Broome is very small, at the top end of Western Australia and pretty much ignored by Australians like everywhere else on the West Coast!! Although we were lucky as this place did have at least 2 roads of shops!! Despite this we did enjoy our time there. My highlight was going camel riding on Cable Beach at sunset. It was a great experience, regardless of the fact that when the camel stood up (2 people sit on the camel and I sat at the back) I head-butted poor Marisa as I hadn't 'braced' myself enough!! If she hadn't been there then there is no doubt about it - I would have gone flying over the top - so thank you very much Marisa for saving me that embarrasement!! Although me head-butting Marisa was enough for everyone else to chuckle about it for the hour long ride!! But at least getting off the animal was a lot easier (despite it being pitch black and you weren't sure where you were landing - luckily we avoided the camel poo!!). Other than that we just relaxed in Broome. We went to the outdoor cinema which was cool, although the mosquitoes come out in force despite you emptying half a cannister of insect repellent on yourself - I swear that the repellent actually attracts them!! Anyway, watching a movie under the stars was great.
After Broome I was heading to Darwin. I was getting there by plane which all seemed rather straight forward to me. Although, unknown to me when I was booking it, my flight actually had a stop over half way at a tiny place called Kununnura. Kelly was also flying to Darwin on the same day as me, leaving 2 hours after me, but getting there about 40 mins after me (her flight was direct and only 1.5 hours compared to my 3.5 hours - I'm not bitter!!). Anyway, I make my way to the airport, and walk up to the check-in desk. I place my bag onto the weighing machine - and from here on my problems just kept coming thick and fast!! My bag was apparently over-weight - no surprise there really, I have travelled all around the world and never once has it been under the required weight, but I have never had a problem about that as every other carrier has let me get on with no extra charge. But guess what - not this time!! It turns out that as this is a small plane the weight limit is 13kg (not the usual 20kg). So the lady makes me remove 9kg from my bag (it was 22kg). So after putting the bag a further 4 times on the weigh machine she finally lets me get away with 13.5kg (wahay!!). Now what I was supposed to do was put the 8.5kg into zip up plastic bags which would go on standby and maybe not get to Darwin for several days - great!! Well I wasn't going to do that (they had already pissed me off enough). So I got one of my spare bags and filled it up as much as I could and only ended up putting about 4kg into a plastic bag to go on standby. I might also add that you were also only allowed to take one piece of cabin luggage at 4kg. I had 2 - one was 4.5kg and the other was 8kg!! So eventually we were allowed to board this tiny plane. Also at check-in they wanted to put me in the emergency seat (i have had experiences of these seats before and know that on quite a few planes the seat doesn't recline). So I asked to change to a window seat and she assured me that the rest of the seats do recline. Well I got onto the plane to discover she had put me at the very back, where if you perched at the edge of your seat and leant forward you could just about see out the window and the seat did not recline!! Anyway, I managed to get away with my two bags and I was getting some luck as my standby luggage had also got on the plane. So we took off and the flight was no problem. We landed in Kununnura and had to disembark for 30 mins before we would be loaded on again and then fly off to Darwin. 30 mins went by and still nothing happened. A further 15 minutes when finally they announced that on landing the plane had hit a bird and they were worried about one of the engines, but no need to worry we would be going in 15 mins! 15 mins later - 'Actually there will be a bit more of a delay. We are now flying an engineer from Darwin to have a look at the engine - that will be another 1.5 hours!' 'Err, actually we now have to get another plane to fly down from Darwin as the problem with your plane cannot be fixed in time!' Well this was just great!! I will also point out that Kununnura airport has to be one of the smallest airports every. There were not shops, in fact pretty much nothing except a little kiosk thing where you could by crips, soft drinks and chocolate!! So I was pretty pissed off by all this and I figured I had a few hours to kill, so I went up to the manager and said 'since you guys made me unpack all my stuff and put it into 3 separte bags and since all that stuff is technically on the plane, can I please have my bags back so that I can put it all back into one?' Well he couldn't really argue with me, so he went off and found my bags and I spent 45 mins repacking the bl**dy thing (at least I wasted time!!) So much for their 'we cannot have any bag weighing over 13kg'!
Anyway, after spending a 'glorious' 4 hours at Kununnura airport, we finally got our new plane and were allowed to go - yeah!! But first we had to go through security (I think this was my fault as I had taken my bag off the plane, repacked it and I think they were checking that I hadn't removed anything sharp or dangerous!! So sorry everyone on that flight for making you go through this!!) Anyway... Once again this did not prove an easy task. I have been through countless security checks and never once during my travels have I been pulled up. But guess what, I was this time. It turned out they were suspisious of the coins in my hand luggage. I am carrying a lot of spare change from all the countries I have visited and have yet to get rid of them. So once we found the source of the 'potentially dangerous object' - I was allowed to pass though. Eventually we borded the plane and took off. Once again the flight was pretty boring and we eventually landed in Darwin at 10.10pm (I was supposed to arrive at 6.10pm!!). Well during this time when I was having a laugh - Kelly caught her flight 2 hours after me and arrived 3 hours before me. She had sussed out the town, and most importantly found the bars!! I got into the city centre, checked-in to the hostel, dumped everything and headed straight for the nearest bar. But as I was so knackered, we only managed 2 drinks before we headed back to bed. I'd also like to point out that Kelly's bag also weighed 22kg, but her carrier did not make her unpack it, she had no problems what so ever. So my advise to any of you who are thinking about travelling in Western Australia is to never ever ever ever fly with AirNorth - they are terrible and apparently they have problems all the time. Sky West is a lot better!!
After all this hassel, it turns that Darwin isn't that exciting anyway - oh well!! Kelly and I visited Litchfield Park where we saw massive termite mounds, swum in some lakes and also saw jumping crocodiles (the dangerous kind) which was actually pretty cool. I also ate some crocodile which tastes like overcooked chicken (or apparently KFC, but I've never eaten there!!) Tomorrow we are heading off on a 7-day camping trip to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock - wish us luck!!