The Kakadu is for Darwin what the Great Barrier Reef is for Cairns – a must see. We departed early, taking an annoying amount of time to pick up everyone else booked on the tour, and then headed off to the park. We were in a small bus, with a group of 17, none of whom said anything at all, as far as I could make out, for the 1½ hour drive to our first stop. This was simply because our tour guide failed to introduce everybody.

I can’t help but keep coming back to this thought – if the tour guides kept people entertained better, then they wouldn’t get drowsy and bored during the long drives. In Australia, I’d have thought the tour guides would be world experts on this by now. Anyway, our first stop was a nice spot called Fogg Dam, which would have been a good opportunity for a bit of nature education from our tour guide, but it wasn’t forthcoming – she seemed to know a great deal, but was only answering questions, not volunteering information.

Since I was riding up front, I took the opportunity to ask some – the most important one, in my opinion, being “is a wallaby just a smaller version of a kangaroo?”. The answer is no – the wallaby and kangaroo belong to the same family, but wallabies, in addition to being much smaller, have a different jaw structure, and have fur, where kangaroos have hair. Anyone tell me the difference between fur and hair? No? Answers on a postcard please.

Soon we arrived at the real destination for the day: Ubirr, which was the site of a great deal of Aboriginal rock painting. Our tour guide became a bit more active at this point, and led the group round a few sites, reeling off a practiced commentary. Still, the sites were definitely worth visiting, and woke us all up a bit. We finished the walk on the top of a hill with a superb view of the wetlands and rock formations that characterise the Kakadu.

In the early evening, we arrived at our campsite. I was seriously apprehensive about this, as I had been made aware some years before that camping meant dispensing with such fairly essential amenities as electricity, plumbing, air conditioning and telephones. Maybe I am going a bit overboard here, I mean, when people say “nature is a million star hotel”, I have no objections, I just can’t understand why they can’t actually build one.

I’m joking of course, but it was still a first – and I was to have another two before the day was out.

The tents themselves were quite luxurious, so I’m told by David, who is skilled in the art of camping – they had proper beds inside, anyway. Vanessa, our ever-positive tour guide, suggested that we might want to organise a campfire, and this led to my second “first” for the day. I had never collected wood for a fire before, and as I did so, using only the moonlight to guide me – I had forgotten my torch – I reflected that this would not be a poor choice of location for a follow-up “Blair Witch Project” sequel. Especially considering that in Australia, there is actually a not insignificant chance that something will come and get you during the night.

We managed to collect enough wood to fuel a fire that lasted about four hours, which was quite impressive, if you ask me. The third first of the day came shortly after we had finished collecting the wood, and involved eating spaghetti bolognaise, which I do not normally like – can’t remember why – and found it was rather nice (especially, apparently, when you can’t see it very well).