Australia - Top End Tales - Beatrice Rest Area Blues

I am writing this next to the campervan at Aurora Lodge in Kakadu surrounded by magpie geese patiently waiting for handouts. The previous day we stopped for a triple hamburger shot of barra (barramundi), croc, and buffalo at the Humpty Doo Hotel.

Then off to Fogg Dam in the afternoon to see the reduced water levels and a variety of birds - jacana, dainty footed on the lily pads, magpie geese honking happily in the wetlands. 

Towards dusk we parked up at Beatrice Rest Area, close to a billabong, and set up the table and chairs outside with a glass of dry white and salsa and doritos. All seemed good, just a few mosquitoes suddenly turned into many more and I most unusually abandoned the bottle at the halfway mark and dived into the campervan. 

We set up for the night inside and I started bashing dozens of red splodges in the ceiling. Then to bed and itching madly as the insects probed long and deep into the sheet wrapped around my body and over my head. For the rest of the night we were up every couple of hours doing bashing patrols of the interior as we found peculiar mosquitoes shaped like small hanging snots. Morning couldn't come soon enough. Tonight, we have the full arsenal - mosquito coils, knock-down spray, and spray-on repellent - we will breathe noxious fumes to stay sane.