Heat Records and Rhinos

Consider it a result of my enigmatic luck, but Darwin (and Arnhem Land as well) is about to have its' hottest July...ever. People told me I'd have trouble adjusting to the heat when I came over here. It's been hard but I've done ok so far. July has been doing its best to knock me right back to the frozen north though. The daily highs hover around 33C with 50% humidity. But that's not what is going to set new records. It's the daily lows that are going to shatter the record books. We've been averaging 22C as an overnight low.... Think about that for a second. Sask has been lucky to see 22 as a high this summer. Last night it didn't get any lower than 24C. It's hard to comprehend unless you're actually here, but suffice to say that most days it feels hotter than Hades eating a dried chili pepper with a side of szechuan in a sauna fueled by the fires of hell. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

"My ride....sort of."

Now for those of you unlucky enough to have never ridden a Rhino. I have to tell you, it's pretty fantastic. They can get you into all sorts of places and out here in the bush they can help you cover a lot of ground. Unless you get stuck, but that's a story for another day.

"Ok this is my real ride."

The 'Rhino' is a quad, only super-sized. It has two seats side by side, a box in the back, a bull bar up front, roll bar on top and a good amount of ground clearance. Aside from the odd huge, dead tree laying in the grass, this guy will get you where you want to go and it'll go through a lot to get there. It certainly saves some walking which is nice during the days described above. We use these guys in Saskie too, but they're way more fun out here.

During our latest excursion we followed along the edge of a huge outcrop (about 2 km long), dodged some fallen trees and tried not to run into the winding runoff creeks. We saw some cool aboriginal rock art, but I can't show it to you. Not on here anyway. If anyone wants a viewing they can stop by when I get back. Every painting is sacred. We can take photos but they can't be published publicly and I can't tell you where I took them. So far I've seen turtles, snakes, dingos, kangaroos, crocodiles, barramundi (fish), hand prints, generic people, 'The Lightning Man' and an old ship. The ages of the paintings I've seen probably range from 30,000 years to 100 years. Aboriginals still do paintings today. There's even been ones spotted of TVs and jets. It's their way of keeping a history and how they tell stories.

Added 2 days later:
We returned to the giant outcrop so we could do a loop up on top of it. It's about 50 m of elevation change so not huge but more than enough to get you above the trees.

"That little red circle is the Rhino from the top of the escarpment."

"Photo taken at the edge of the escarpment. It was windy as hell up there today. We couldn't complain though because it kept us cool-ish."

It was a welcome change of pace to get out into the wilds again. This time hiking more so than driving in the Rhino. I also can't get enough of the views once you get above the trees. It's something we can't take advantage of in Saskie. Tons of flat ground but nothing to climb up to see it. That's probably why climbing Castle Rock is so fun down in the Big Muddy Valley.

"When our loop took us to the the opposite side there was a different thing on the horizon. Tor Rock aka the Father Rock. Father as in father of the land. It's an incredibly sacred site for the aboriginals and not easy to get to. We were probably a good 10 km away when I took the photo and it's size is still apparent. There's a Mother Rock (as in Mother of the land) over in Kakadu National Park. It's about 10 m across.....so slightly smaller in a rhino to a mouse sort of way."