Kakadu National Park

Wednesday 23 June
Much excitement about heading into Kakadu today. Many people have told us not to bother going to Kakadu, saying Litchfield is much better, Jim Jim Falls Rd is closed so there’s nothing much to see…if there’s one thing we’ve learned on the trip, it’s that you have to see things for yourself! We’ve seen so many things that others have said are no good and we’ve though it’s fantastic.

Just into the National Park we stopped at the South Alligator River for lunch. This looks like croc territory! Lots of these signs around…

We weren’t going anywhere near the water. Across the other side of the river there seemed to be quite a few slide outs where crocs go up the bank. We spotted this big bugger having a rest.

We reached Merl campground near Ubirr mid afternoon and set up. Ubirr is a major aboriginal rock art site – we plan to be there to see the sunset and listen to some of the free ranger talks about the art and aboriginal culture and history in the area.

We arrived at Ubirr at about 5pm and walked around some of the art sites.

It’s unreal to think how old some of these paintings are. There are interpretive signs that explain some of the stories as well – very interesting. The aboriginals in this region had different areas for different types of paintings. Some sections were for stories to teach the children, others were for men only and others were law stories for the initiated etc. Lots of areas were painted with food items readily available in the region.

Today’s ranger talk is at the top of the escarpment that overlooks the floodplains.

Awesome view from the top. This place has a really special feel about it – hard to explain but this is another highlight of the trip.

Still time for silly buggers – kids will be kids…anywhere.

Unfortunately there were too many clouds to see one of the spectacular sunsets that this place is known for.

On the way home we were stopped in the middle of the road by a local coming the other way. A huge, thick olive python was warming up on the bitumen.

This photo doesn’t do him justice. He was at least three metres long and as thick as a rockmelon. The cars were starting to line up behind us and this snake wasn’t going anywhere. We asked the local fella if we should just drive around him – maybe the snake will back off the road? He said not to worry, he’ll drag him off!! What!! He then grabbed the snake by the tail (this picture shows the snake getting ready to have a go at the fella as he got closer) and dragged him off into the bush. The snake tried to strike a few times but this fella knew what he was doing. Great show to end the night!

Back at the campground it was mozzie happy hour. There are more mosquitoes here than anywhere we have ever been before. Aaarrrrgh! We did a run to the showers thinking we’d be ok in there, but spent as much time swatting mozzies as we did cleaning – awful! There would have been at least 50 mozzies in the shower cubicle. Big tip for next time – whatever you have to do outdoors, do it before dark and then lock yourself inside and don’t come out til morning.


Thursday 24 June
Another stinking hot night last night – hard to sleep. And it must be 30 degrees and about 90% humidity by 8am.

The hour and a half the evening before was nowhere near enough time at Ubirr. We lobbed up again the next morning to have a proper look around and listen to some more ranger talks. The talk this morning was at the main art gallery, a big shelter with overhanging rock. The talks are really informative – helped us to learn lots about the area. One of the most interesting talks was about the kinship laws – very complex laws that determined how people and communities could relate to each other and guaranteeing incest did not occur. So clever.

Lots of food items in this shelter – turtles, barramundi, goanna etc. The style here is to paint the internal anatomy of the animals showing the good eating parts.

There’s also a painting of a Tassie Tiger (Thylacine) – note the stripes at the back…long time since any of them were on the mainland.

After the talk we went back up to the lookout on top of the escarpment…magnificent.

Under one of the rock overhangs was evidence that it was well used by aboriginals in the past. The grinding holes that were used to crush seeds and other items were very deep…and this is hard rock. Not the sort of hole that would be made in a couple of months or years.

Luke liked this picture of a warrior going out to hunt. He could tell that it was a boy!

Just down from Ubirr is Cahills Crossing which leads over to Arnhem Land. The road is a causeway that has water flowing over it with the tidal flow of the East Alligator River. A permit is required to go over there. Big crocs are very common here and people have been taken…still there was an idiot here the day before standing in the water fishing.

Before leaving the area we did a short walk (started with B). Looked like pancake rocks. Some of the terrain was a bit like the Bungle Bungles (not quite the same scale though!).

More shelters and rock art here.

About 50kms down the road we stopped in at Jabiru for lunch. Nice little town with everything that you would need. We then moved on to Nourlangie rock art site, another important cultural area for the local aboriginal people. The ranger talk that afternoon at the main gallery was about Namarrgon, the lightning man (top right). He has axes on his head, elbows and knees which he uses to hit the clouds and send lightning to the earth.

Namarrgon’s children are the Leichhardt grasshoppers (little red grasshoppers). When they started to appear each year the local aboriginal people knew they needed to get off the open floodplains and low lying areas because lightning and rain would soon be coming (start of the wet season).

The escarpments around this area are also spectacular.

Nourlangie also has some very well preserved shelters where aboriginal people have stayed over thousands of years. After having a look at these we set up camp about 6kms down the road at Mandabanjbanj right next to a billabong – didn’t get too close to that water either.

Friday 25 June
Hot, hot, hot. One of the rangers told us the humidity is similar to the build up to the wet season – very unusual at this time of year.

Before moving on we had a quick look from another lookout near Nourlangie which had views across to the Arnhem escarpment...

..and then on to Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre to learn more about the local indigenous people. The girls were very happy to have the opportunity to learn from Lizzy how to weave a pandanus bracelet. They dyed some of the pandanus orange using the root of a tree…

…and then each weaved their own bracelet.

The finished product looked great.

Only one km up the road is the Gagudju Lodge at Cooinda. This was a great place to have lunch and then go for a swim in the resort pool. Very nice of the resort people to let us cool off.

We set up at Gungural campground for the night and spent the afternoon catching up on journals and school work.

Saturday 26 June
One last stop before we leave Kakadu. We dropped off the van at the Mary River Roadhouse and drove the 37km of corrugated dirt road to Gunlom Falls. Great decision to leave the van – this is one of the worst roads we have driven. There were some vans at the campground at the falls – that would be a very slow trip. Gunlom was a very nice spot…

…and swimming in the pools at the top of the falls was great…

…great views from the top…

…but in hindsight it wasn’t different enough from other waterfalls we have seen to be worth that crappy drive. If the road was better it would have been worth it…anyway, we’ve seen it now.

That ends the stint in Kakadu. The sights were fantastic and the information about aboriginal culture was incredibly interesting – we all learned so much. So glad that we didn’t listen to those people that told us not to bother going in!