ok so in my first hub i touched on elements of my travel in australia and yes i know its nothing new to travel around that country, but there is so much to it that you never hear about. Even when i was booking tours it didnt detail some of the things we'd be doing fully enough for me not to be shocked when presented with a situation.

The first surprise came with my second day of my organised out back tour. I know i booked with a company called adventure travel but i wasnt expecting the kind of activities that i was faced with over the next 2 weeks. We drove up to the base of a pretty intimidating looking mountain and the guide announced that we were going to scale it and it was only going to take us 3 hours. This was a very formiddable prospect for me, while i dont shy away from physical or hard work i have absolutley no experience in climbing. little did i know that the plan was to just walk up. Our guide took off in front of us with a small back pack containing water and some energy bars. The 16 of us on the tour looked at each other a little baffled but obviously followed. After an hour of climbing up very steep, loose gravel laiden mountain we were faced with a sheer almost vertical cliff face. With no ridges or even a bump worth mentioning i was thinking this is definately the kind of climb you wouldnt be allowed to go near without ropes and a day of trianing back home, but to my surprisew we relatively easily passed this obstacle. Its amazing what you can acomplish when you forget everything you've ever learned about health and safety and run up the side of a cliff. The view from the top was breathtaking.

Jumping off the side of cliff into a rock pool is something that will also take your breath away. After hiking around kakadu national park we came to a beautifully remote area of about 3 small but very deep rock pools at the top of a high cliff. We stripped to bikinis and shorts etc and jumped right in, it was the perfect way to cool off after a hike in 40 degree heat, but jumping from the cliff into the enormous rock pool at the bottom is something i would never do. It looked miles high from the top. i was actually shaking but this was the last stop and by this point in the trip we had all become quite close and we urged each other on, held hands closed out eyes and jumped as far as we could. The fall seemed to go on forever, hitting the water at the bottom really knocks the breath from your lungs enough to spend the next hour floating around in the water without feeling lazy at all.