Survial of the fittest in Darwin

Paddy wasn't working, I took a few days off work and surprised him with a holiday. I think a holiday was long overdue, so off we went to Darwin in the northern territories. The flight took four and a half hours! We arrived at eleven that night to find that our hostel hadn't left keys out for us (someone else, apparently, had taken our keys). It was frustrating because I had chosen this hostel especially because of its 24 hour service. We rang the 24 hour help line several times but no one answered!! So we had to walk into the city centre at 11.30 at night.
We stayed in a travelodge hotel that night. It was peaceful and quiet.
The next day we moved to a central hostel, called Chillies backpackers, which was to turn out to be a nightmare for us (but more on that later).
We spent the first day checking out Darwin and watching the Melbourne cup. The second day we got up at 7 to go to Lichfield national park. It was sensational (see all our photos of the waterfalls). We saw huge termite mounds, went swimming in waterfall plunge pools and went on a really cool jumping crocodile boat cruise.
The next day we went to Kakadu which is an Aboriginal area about the size of Switzerland. We took a plane ride in a small, five person plane, went on a wild life boat cruise, saw a few interesting cultural centres and saw the Aboriginal wall paintings. It was amazing day although its tough to go touring in 40 degree weather.
We spent the next day chilling out in Darwin and went out for a few drinks with one of the guys from the hostel. That night, after I went to bed, Paddy woke up at 2 in the morning and went to the toilet. He forgot his room key and couldn't get back inside. That's when the trouble started. Paddy started shouting to wake me up, but he woke up a horrible, brutish backpacker instead. The guy was British and seemed to hate the Irish, he got aggressive and beat Paddy up in the corridore before running away, the coward. His girlfriend came out and tried to see if Paddy remembered who it was, she was disappointed to find out that he remembered the guy. The night porter called an ambulance. Paddy was in bad shape. The guy who hit Paddy went straight to reception the next morning (while we were in casualty) to tell the hostel reception guy a pack of lies about Paddy in order to get himself off the hook, of course his girlfriend abeted him. He was a coward, a bully and a liar and his girlfriend was a sneaky, nasty person covering up for such a lout.
Paddy's nose was broken, his forehead was split open, just above his eye. He got stitches and was in a bad way for a time. The next day the hostel reception guy justified the beating, explaining to us that "that's how things are done in Australia". He was the worst of all, he let the guy stay and everything. We went to the cops who gave them a talking to. There were no witnesses so we couldn't press charges
Darwin was a great city, Kakadu and Litchfield were so lovely, it hasn't been ruined for us by some ignorant lout and an inconsiderate hostel owner. Still, I'd avoid Chillies backpackers if I'm ever back in Darwin!