Kakadu Day 3

We started our day with a swim in the great pool at Cooinda. It is a lovely pool with lots of depth variations and options for little kids. We decided to then go to Mirrai Lookout and Sandy Billabong. When we got to the lookout, the walk which was listed in the guide as being a moderately steep 2km return was signposted as a steep 1.6km one way. As it was around lunchtime and the day was warming up, and not knowing which length description was correct, we decided to err on the side of caution and go to Sandy Billabong. I am so glad we did. It is beautiful. I felt slightly antsy the whole time as there is no walkway or path, you just make your way as close to the water's edge as you feel comfortable with. We stayed back far enough for me to feel OK and just soaked in the wonder of this billabong. It looked like very few people go there and it was so quiet and calm and beautiful. This too is a bird haven, with so much variety to birdlife. We saw our first Jabiru across the water. The Jabiru is another bird I have wanted to see ever since I won a storybook when I was in primary school that starred a Jabiru, some 30 odd years ago. It's amazing to think that after all this time, I still wanted to see one in the wild and I finally did!

 Sandy Billabong (above and below) 

We went on a Yellow River Sunset Cruise and I have to say to anyone considering it, just do it. You won't be disappointed. You get to explore Yellow River Billabong and the South Alligator River. We saw around 15 corocodiles, all salties. The majority were females but we got very close to a big male lying on the river bank. Our boat captain/tour guide pointed out crocodile slides and we got so close to many crocodiles just floating in the river. Sometime all you saw was the eyes and nostrils and other times you could see their whole length. They see to barely move, even as they cruise along, with just a slight undulation of their body. They leave no ripple or wake as they swim. The only time I saw ripples was when one sunk into the water as the boat approached, and even that was so calm and almost invisible. It is hard to imagine just how explosive their power must be as they seek to bring down their prey. The thrill of seeing them didn't subside and I enjoyed seeing the last one every bit as much as the first one. And I have to say, my fear of crocodiles began to subside: not enough for me to go swimming with them or walk along the edge of a creek or billabong but I guess I started to get a bit desensitised, which takes away that complete “freak out” feeling I had been experiencing.

We also saw a big male water buffalo right up close. He kept a close eye on us too. Our tour guide told us that one day when he was doing one of the cruises, he saw a buffalo head into the water to cross and three crocodiles began to converge. The buffalo made it across safely but it would have been an amazing sight.

Our cruise had quite a few 'twitchers' (crazy bird lovers... OK,, not crazy just very passionate bird lovers) on board and so we were treated to an incredible bird watching spectacle too! Our boat operator had everyone on board pointing out the birds they saw and then these were identified and lots of opportunities for photos ensued. There were some stunning birds. Tilda made a whole bunch of people's day when she spotted the Azure Kingfisher. She also spotted a Rainbow Bee-eater (my favourite bird since we identified them at Longreach Waterhole) and the Nankeen Night Heron (that she had found and identified at Bitter Springs). I told her I might have to disown her if she becomes a crazy twitcher, but I'm pretty sure she knows I was kidding. As the sunset we got to watch a Jabiru hunt. This is a most incredible sight.. too hard to put into words how amazing and graceful they are. At first it was standing stock still, staring intently into the water and then it saw some prey and it began a “dance”, wings outstretched, legs lifting high as it danced and ran through the shallow water following its prey. With the sun setting behind, it was a truly magical sight.

 Rainbow Bee-eater

Azure Kingfisher (above and below)

Two Jabiru

Male and female brolgas building a nest

Plumed Whistling Ducks (I really liked these guys)

Sea Eagle

Baby Jacana (these were soooo small and cute)

Jabiru

Jabiru hunting

Spoonbill

The water is glassy, so the reflections are beautiful and so clear. It is hard to describe just how stunning the Kakadu wetlands are, so hopefully the pictures do it some justice. We got to watch the sun set over the water of the billabong.  

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"

Kakadu Day 1

Almost from the minute we turned off the Stuart Highway, the vegetation and landscape seemed to change from what we had been watching north of Katherine. For the next 100+ km there was unrelenting, unchanging savannah woodland. After a while, it sounds bad but, I kind of got sick of the sameness of it. I mean, there we were, driving through a world famous National Park, and I was bored by it... ooops! About the only highlight was seeing a family of 4 wild buffalo, which was very cool. Unfortunately towing a 24' van means we can't just stop immediately to take photos. Most of the time I am rapt in the environment we are travelling through. There are some parts of the outback, some of the most desolate, barren parts where there is nothing but red rock and dirt and very sparse vegetation, where the country soaked into my heart and soul. I can see why people head to the outback to be farmhands and work the land in this inhospitable part Australia. There are parts where I have felt my mood lift and my heart hum along with the beat of the country. The woodland savannah of Kakadu had the opposite effect for me... I was just bored.

We stopped the first night at the Mary River Roadhouse, which is just outside the national park. The main reason we stayed there was so we could visit Gunlom Falls without having to back track. The owners are very friendly and welcoming, to the kids as well, which was nice.

Gunlom Falls are pretty cool and promoted as one of the tourist “must do's”. It's a pretty rough road in... 36km of fairly corrugated dirt but definitely worthwhile. There is about a 100m uphill climb (up rocks and stone steps, some of them almost too big for me) to get to the top of the falls, but once up there you get to a spectacular set of pools. The climb was tough... very, very tough in the heat of the day. It was pretty much climbing straight up the cliff face using natural steps. It felt harder than the climb to the Rim Walk at Kings Canyon and I'm not sure if it is because the climb is harder or because it was just so much hotter. I'm pretty sure they're about the same height and steepness. But it is doable, even with Rory, and I saw people of all fitness levels and ages making the climb.
The very first pool is widely advertised as one of the only natural infinity pools and with the low volume of water flowing over the falls, it is completely safe to use. We decided to go a bit further up to a deeper, larger and less populated pool. This was a great choice for us. While it didn't have the same view of the valley below, owing to rocks in the way, it made up for it in fun, space and less crowd. We were able to swim and explore and enjoy this amazing pool to our hearts content. I have no idea how deep it was, but you could jump in and not touch the bottom. It was so deep that you couldn't see the bottom, unlike some of the pools closer to the waterfall edge. At one part of the edge of this pool the rocks continued to slope down under the water in a gentle decline. These rocks were slippery...as in incredibly, dangerous if you walk on them slippery... and the kids had a wonderful time using them as an in pool water slide. I even got in on the fun on the steepest edge, which sent you plunging off into the deeper water.

View from the lookout at the top of Gunlom Falls

The "infinity pool" at the top of Gunlom Falls

 

There is also a beautiful plunge pool at the bottom of the falls. The lady at the Katherine Information Centre recommended that we only swim at the top of the falls, however people were swimming in the plunge pool and looking at it, I would imagine that it was perfectly safe (from crocodiles) at the time we were there. I think, despite my croc phobia, I probably would have swum there, but we were hot and tired and ready to head back to the caravan.

One of the problems of doing it how we did is that we got to Gunlom Falls around 2pm, so it was a very hot time of day to try to climb such a steep hill. Not the smartest thing to do, but unless we wanted to spend a second night at Mary River in order to do the falls early in the morning, it was kind of the only way to do it. It worked out OK, and it was definitely worthwhile but I wouldn't really recommend climbing the cliff face in the middle of the day if you can avoid it. I carried Rory for some of it but then my legs got all rubbery so Greg pretty much carried him most of the rest of the way.

At every waterway in the National Park you see crocodile warning signs. I don't know why I found this one so funny... I think it's the guy being eaten off the bank. It made us laugh.

Katherine Gorge

Katherine Gorge is stunning. The only way to really experience it is on a cruise. You can do a couple of walks (and climbs) to various look outs along the gorge but the only way to see it at water level is by boat. And the cruise was definitely worth it. We did the two gorge cruise (the most you can do is 3 of the 13 gorges) and that was lovely. The pristine, still waters reflect the surrounding rock walls and vegetation. It is so calm and restful and thoroughly enjoyable.

We had an Aboriginal guide with us who talked about various parts of the gorge and wildlife and how they relate to it. It was very informative and very interesting. As part of my environmental degree we learned about how Aborigines worked in tune with the land and this was really apparent in the talk. One of the things that amazed me was the guide pointed out a Yellow Kapok tree that was bare of leaves but had yellow flowers on it. He said that when the flowers bloom, that is when crocodiles lay their eggs. When the flowers die and the seed pods form, the eggs hatch. The Aborigines note these connections in nature so much better than we do. The reason they knew this was so they knew when to go and collect the eggs for food, always leaving 2-3 eggs so the species could continue.

We met a lovely family on the cruise, which was great. It gave all of us a chance to chat to people other than ourselves and especially Tilda to have a girl her age to talk to. They didn't stop talking the whole 2 hours.

And we saw a crocodile as we headed back to the end of the cruise. Our first real crocodile in the wild and I didn't have a heart attack. It was very cool to see.

Katherine

Coming in to Katherine was such a relief... a real town with real shops and no more roadhouse prices for a while. I don't mind paying fair prices, and I know small towns and long distances equals more expensive but $11 for a loaf of frozen bread and a packet of chips... or $3.60 for a can of coke... it all starts to sour after a while. I didn't mind Katherine as a town. It was a good place to stop for a couple of days, catch up on school, restock on groceries and just enjoy the offerings.

We stayed at a lovely caravan park in walking distance to the hot springs and it also had a swimming pool, so it was well located and set up for the hot weather. Even though the weather had been getting hotter as we came north, it felt like the minute we hit Katherine it was not just hot, but horribly humid as well. The swimming pool was a definite hit as Tilda met some friends there, which was nice after quite a while without other kids to play with. Some of them are heading the same way as us so we are hoping to cross paths occasionally for a play/catch up. The swimming pool was also a great place to talk to other families who have already done the Kakadu-Litchfield-Darwin journey, or even into WA, to ask questions and find out the “must do” things.

We spent the first afternoon in the hot springs. These are nowhere near as warm at Bitter Springs and Mataranka, only around 26-28 degrees, but very refreshing. There are a series of pools but we only stayed in the top pool as we ran into some locals on the way to the pools and they suggested the top pool was the safest and the lower pools may be too close to the Katherine River to guarantee safety. They may have just been pulling our leg but we figured it wasn't worth the risk. Besides, the top pool was pretty good. There is a small pool where you can see the fissure the water flows out of. It is only small (2-3 people can fit in it) and then the water flows over some rocks into the top pool. This creates quite a strong current that flows down the pool and over some rocks. The kids had a great time floating down the current to where the water flowed over a rock wall towards a lower pool and then swimming back up, just outside the strong flow of water, only to do it all again. It was a lot of fun and Rory managed it quite well in his life jacket, with help from me to swim back “upstream”.

We visited the Low Level Reserve, which is very pretty but is on the Katherine River so you do need to be mindful of crocodiles (read: I was freaking out every minute).

We also visited NT Rare Rocks. This shop is pretty cool. It is run by an older gentleman who has collected the rocks himself. There are all sorts of rocks, some of which can only be found in the NT or across the very top of Australia. There were things like amethyst, thunder eggs, snowflake obsidian (I loved this!) and other crystals, as well as the famous zebra stone, okapi stone and beautifully layered sandstones. The prices were reasonable and we bought a weird assortment of interesting rocks. Fortunately the owner wrote down the names of them all so that we wouldn't forget!