Australia

After spending a month in  Indonesia, we took flight, and landed in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.  We were very surprised with Darwin!!  We both expected this port town to be frontiersy, rustic, and rough around the neck, but we discovered just the opposite.  It is a small city of about 150 thousand, which is beautiful, similar to Hawaii, easy to get around, and not too busy, as of yet.  We hear it doubles in size in the winter months of June, July, August, September(Australia has opposite seasons to us). The gray nomades, who are similar to our snowbirds, migrate north to Darwin for the winter to get away from the colder temperatures of southern Australia. With the influx of tourists, prices go up, accommodations are harder to get, so we were lucky to be there in low season. But, we were not so fortunate in renting a campervan!  Our plan was to rent one and travel down through the Kimberleys, a sparsely settled northern region.  It's best known for its swaths of wilderness defined by rugged mountains, dramatic gorges, outback desert, and isolated coastal regions.  Due to low season many rental companies don't open their doors until April 1st.  We knew availability would be limited but didn't realize you had to book a campervan a month ahead of time!  So we rethought our plans, rented a car to explore the Darwin area for the days we were there, and booked a flight to Perth, for the end of the week.