Arrived in Australia

My overnight flights from Hong Kong to Darwin via Singapore were fine, except for getting stopped going through customs after admitting to having been to rural areas in the last month. But this actually turned out to be a good thing as they cleaned my hiking boots and tent for me.

Arriving in Darwin was another culture shock. After the big change in life from China to Hong Kong I wasn't expecting things to be too different when I got to Australia,, but I was wrong. I was expecting Darwin to be a small city but walking around the town centre when I arrived on Saturday morning I was shocked by how empty everywhere was and how quiet it was. In China and Hong Kong its difficult to walk down the pavement as theres so many people there and there are always people trying to stop you to sell stuff. Here you can just walk down the street and cross the road without fearing for your life. In China even if you use a pedestrian crossing the chance of a car actually stopping is still low. And in China I've just got used to having to ignore all the people that come up to you in the street but here people are actually just genuinely being friendly and want to chat.

After a night of no sleep and arriving in Darwin at about 5am, I didn't really do much the first day I was there. Just had a look round the town and tried to come up with some plans on where I wanted to go in Australia. Ended up booking on a tour to Alice Springs and Uluru for a week. In the evening, went for a walk around and ended up going for a drink on the harbour. This turned out to be a good introduction to how different Australian wildlife is. Were sat watching some huge fish and squid swimming around the harbour and then some dolphins just swam past as well. So it was a good first day here and looking forward to seeing more of the country