(Part of a series of articles by Fi trawling the archives for photos taken on the tiny compact camera way back when).

Darwin – my first taste of seeing Australia through adult eyes (23 years after my first visit eek!). Darwin seemed pristine clean & quiet.  At the time I thought I could live there, though now I realise it is too quiet and actually a fair amount of Australian towns are stunningly clean & beautiful.  The biggest shocker for us was how expensive everything seemed, especially after South East Asia. Aiming to keep costs low we hired the cheapest car and tent to head off into Litchfield Park. Day time was fine. We could wack the air-con on in the car, or jump into one of many water holes along our walks. Night time was a different matter. Hot & sticky is not conducive to sleep, though a lack of pillows, mattress or bedding and a fear of opening our plasticky heat absorbing tent in case the beasties crawl in and it gets much worse. For our final night, after visiting the crocs in the wetlands, the only available campsite was a holiday park. A welcome luxury, we had a splash in the pool before eating our high class dinner – cheese & crisp butties!  At the end of our week in Darwin we totted up our spends: cheapest transport and accommodation, no meals out, a diet of mostly tuna, cheese, bread, crisps and cereal. The total was scary and we still had another 7 weeks in Australia to budget for …