We returned to Hygeia on the 22nd August, and found her just as we had left her, in good condition:a friend on an American-flagged Oyster 55 has been very kindly keeping an eye on her.

A few days ago we hired a car and spent some time in Kakadu National Park (the locals call it Kakadon't as they are so fed up with it and all the hype). It was all a bit hectic, but we had a fantastic time. We stayed in the crocodile hotel in Jabiru (It really was shaped like a crocodile!), and manged to get to most of the sights. The Yellow River was particularly memorable, with amazing wildlife and literally hundreds of crocs.

We're now back on board and preparing for our departure tomorrow. I had already bought charts to cover the trip to Thailand when we were in the UK, but found an amazingly cheap source of charts here in Darwin, (?of questionable legality.) He can provide high-quality charts from a master disc, and only charges A$4 each: I spent over GBP 450 buying the charts from here to Thailand, and he has provided us with all the charts from Thailand to Gibraltar (approx. 100) for A$400 - less than GBP 140!! He even threw in the charts for the Fakawi Islands free of charge. (As in "where the ........." - local Aussie joke!). If you have a CD burner, there's even a place here where you can pick up electronic charts free of charge!

We've had to provision for a month, as there will be no proper shops now till we reach Bali in October. In particular we've done a major duty-free stock up with grog - the great bargain is a crate of scotch for A$87 - that's less than three pounds sterling per bottle! A dozen bottles may sound a bit over the top, but a bottle of scotch is reckoned to be the standard currency for "sweetening" the officials who will plague our lives for the next two months. We've also bought a lot of cigarettes for the same purpose, though that does go a bit against the grain.

Our destination on leaving Darwin is Kupang in West Timor - where Captain Cook went when he left Australia, and where Capt Bligh ended up after his 4,000 mile passage. It sounds as though the election in East Timor went well and without violence, so hopefully things will be okay. Friends who have gone on ahead have reported by SSB that they cleared in without incident, though it did take six hours! The passage is only 470 miles so we should do it in a tad over three days.

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