Kakadu Day 2

We set out to do a billabong walk or two after moving to Cooinda in the morning. The Yellow Water walk we wanted to do was closed so unfortunately we couldn't do that one. We drove to Madagul to do the billabong walk there but it wasn't well signposted (there were 2 tracks and I wasn't sure which one was the right one) and didn't look well marked out, and I was having mild panics about crocodiles, so we didn't do that walk either. 

We decided to visit the Warradjan Cultural Centre. I really enjoyed walking through the Centre and learning about the different Aboriginal groups that have lived in this region. I much prefer this type of education where it simply presents a whole range of facts and information about the people, their culture, the food, lifestyle and ceremony.  It talks about how “white people” have impacted on the local communities, both negative and positive. It gave me a much greater sense of culture and place than any other thing I have been told or taught. Having driven up the centre of Australia, particularly in the NT where there are many townships that are primarily populated by Indigenous Australians, I have developed a much greater understanding of the differences in our cultures and a much greater understanding of the impact of Europeans and white Australians have had in the past and continue to have today. I can't begin to imagine how hard it must be to try to continue to live from the land and within their culture, and not lose that culture in today's society, but I have a much greater sense of their connection to family and to the land and a great respect for the Aboriginal community. 

We ended up at the Yellow Water boardwalk late in the afternoon. It isn't a very long walk but skirts along the edge of the billabong. It is absolutely bird heaven, or a bird haven, or both. The cacophony from the correllas in particular, was so loud it was almost ridiculous. Tilda, with her sharp eyes, spotted a pair of stunning Forest Kingfishers, and we saw a good smattering of cormorants, ibis and ducks. We also saw two Brolgas, which is something I have always wanted to see. Then, to our surprise, we saw our first saltie! At first I did a double take as it was just a brown lumpy thing on the surface of the water and we really didn't expect to see any at this particular spot in the billabong, but then it moved a bit and we all realised it was a crocodile. It was so very exciting and we couldn't grab the camera fast enough, but we did get some photos. And then, in the next 10 minutes we saw 4 or 5 others. It was just great; so wonderful to see these creatures so close when we had least expected to.

Our first "saltie"