Kakadu

Saturday: Morning trip to Yellow Waters to do another billabong tour. This one starts at Yellow waters and goes out onto the South Alligator River. Had to meet in the Gagadju Lodge carpark as a fair bit of the driveway down to the boats was still under water. They had a late-ish wet here and its a bit slow to dry out. There were 60 on this tour, a boat-full, and they had 4 other boats for when the rush starts. The tours go 4=5 times a day, so you can see that it must get pretty busy out here. This trip was much more professional than the last; an expert boat driver and passionate about the wetlands. Apart from the usual bunch of crocs, we saw flocks of whistling ducks, magpie geese, darters, rainbow bee eaters, sacred kingfishers, jacana and chicks, white bellied sea eagles and a couple of jabirus. Highlight was when Judy spotted a snake swimming across our bows and over into the lily pads. Apparently this particular snake is one of the very few native animals that can eat a cane toad without getting poisoned.
Went round to Ubirr with a side trip to the Warradjan Cultural centre.  ... to be continued, a small break while we drive back to Darwin... please standby...
OK, made it back in one piece, so as i was saying, went to Ubirr where there are hundreds if not thousands of aboriginal rock paintings; from hands, to x-ray figures to explicit fish and wallaby. Some of them are almost completely faded, others are bright and vibrant. The main gallery is like a large blackboard: it's been used over and over again, the latest one having a quite distinct red ochre background from which other bits can still be seen protruding. As the sign says, its not the art that's important, but the act of the painting and related story telling. Further up we reach the 'lookout' where we have a 360degree view from Arnhem Land in the west, past the wetlands to the north, the eucalypt forest to the west and more stone country to the south. I forgot to mention that at two places on the way to Ubirr from the Arnhem highway turnoff, the road is cut by the still high water levels.

Snap of the day

Friday:  Lunch cruise on Corroboree Billbong on the Mary River. We made a bit of a blue in the booking which left us with a 200k drive back toward Darwin to get there, but its pretty spectacular once you get out on the water proper. Crocs are everywhere lazing about on the banks and popping their ugly snouts up from beneath the water. This place is well outside Kakadu NP and open for fishing, which they flock to do in droves. Fishing is the common language in the NT, except if you want to talk Sate of Origin football. I have no idea if they are concerned about the man-eaters all around, they still paddle about in the water at the boat ramp and hang bits over the edge while fishing. Our guide was a bit new to the area but tried hard to point out as many birds and flowers as he could. It was a cloudy day and gusty winds were making things difficult for boat handling so we forgave him and enjoyed the scenery and wildlife. There weren't as many birds as you might have been led to expect, perhaps its a bit early in the season. Lotus flowers and their big lily pads were everywhere, almost a noxious weed, and they are fascinating in the way they flower with the pad at water level, which gets left standing tall as the water drops, not floating as you might expect. They also either sprout from the roots, or produce seed pods which ripen and fall back into the water. The seeds can also be eaten and are a cross between a baked bean and a pine nut.

OK, here's your snap

Thursday: Out on the road in the Kia. First stop is Window on the wetlands an information place on top of Beatrice Hill, near the Adelaide River. It offers a range of information aboutr the land, people, flor and fauna, and a good 360 view of the wetlands. Then we keep going for another 160k to get to Jabiru itself. At this stage we are getting a bit disillusioned about the fabled Kakadu, so far its been flat and dry and hot, not unlike the last 10,000 or so kilometres. We went to book into the Crocodile Hotel but they weren't ready and advised us to go into the village and try the really nice cafe for lunch. Who are we to argue with the locals at two in the afternoon? The 'plaza' (who are these people? It's two shops and a bit of lawn) presents itself as being run down, the cafe is the pits, its run down, dirty and completely devoid of any socially redeeming features. The food is worse. We are reminded of the same dirty decrepit cafes in Rome, but then they were 2000 years old. Went back to motel, booked in before going out to Nourlangie Rocks. Perhaps we would see something special to cheer us up. And we did, this is one of the places that holds lots of aboriginal rock art in amongst the huge sandstone blocks that have tumbled down from the towering cliffs. These artworks truly are amazing in number,colour and variety, they are the ones I've been looking for for years. Certainly a world away from the ones at Middle Creek in Namadgi.
Had a swim in the pool and then over to the Golf Club for dinner. Chicken schnitzel, what else? Luckily it was tasty enough and certainly cheap enough, two for fifteen dollars, truly the food bargain of the year in the NT.

Snap of the day