Kakadu - wet lands, rock art and water crossings!

Date:	03 - 06/05/2017
Location:	Kakadu (Northern Territory)
Distance Travelled:	236 km
Temperature:	Min:	23.2
	Max:	35.0
ABORIGINAL cave art:	250+

Heading out of Darwin, we took the Arnhem highway, leading south east from city. On our way to Kakadu, we passed through a little township named Humpty Doo; which led to the boys making up rhymes for the next hour or so, stringing together ‘oo’ words – needless to say, being two young lads, most of the rhymes included ‘poo’ (“We’re off to Kakadu, going through Humpty Doo, to see a moo do a poo”, you get the picture…).

With that hilarity behind us (Oh, please let it be behind us!!), we pulled into our first stop: the Window on the Wet Lands – visitors centre. The aboriginal name for this area is Ludawei, meaning turtle dreaming place, which features proudly in the dreamtime creation stories for the people of this area. This was a little gem of a place, particularly for those with an inquisitive mind. In addition to the helpful young lady sitting at the front desk, poised to answer any informational-type questions a passing visitor may have, there was also a massive display and education area replete with interesting facts about the flora and fauna of the Kakadu wetlands. There were even question and answer worksheets for the boys, which made us feel a little better for not keeping up as rigorously as we should have with their homework. So, with pencil and paper in hand, we spent the best part of two hours exploring the visitors centre, seeking answers to questions about this region.

 Window of the Wet Lands – Visitor’s Centre

But, soon it was time move on. A quick bite to eat in the car (out of the steaming heat and swarms of flies) and we were off. Trundling down the Arnhem highway, the landscape started to change. At first it just looked a little greener, but presently there was a flourish of colour and then increasingly dense vegetation closed in around us. Cabbage trees and Pandanus (flax like, squat shaped palms) began to appear; dominating the landscape out to the horizon. Pockets of water also started to emerge from the bush, with occasional billabongs (minus jolly swagmen, sadly) becoming rivers and swampland. Road signs also started to appear, announcing that we were travelling on a flood plain – with depth markers dotted here and there showing in the low points of the road, to warn travellers how deep the waters might be. This warning would be especially welcome during the wet season when the roads are largely flooded. Fortunately for us, the wet season ended several months ago, and most of the transient waterways that had burgeoned during the tropical monsoons had thankfully subsided. We knew there would be ample opportunities to cross water in our future, but we were hoping it would be once we had our trailer set up high and dry on solid ground.

Like most places at the top end of Australia, the waterways we were bumbling past were strictly for admiring only. Not, unfortunately, for swimming or cooling our tired feet in. The threat of crocs continued to loom large throughout Kakadu, and we wanted to avoid the embarrassment of social media shame by being shamefully gobbled by a hungry reptile (as described in my Darwin blog post).

And so, before long we entered into the great Kakadu national park…

Arriving at Kakadu National Park

However, our day’s journey wasn’t at an end just yet. We had the pleasure of meandering our way through throngs of lush plants, grassy meadows, and flowing waterways towards our new home-away-from-home for the next few days: Jabiru. This sparsely populated township wasn’t much to write home about (but, that’s never stopped me before!). There were a couple of caravan/camping sites, as well as  petrol station, and a supermarket. And that was about it. Unfortunately, the local pie shop – which we had heard good things about, and from which we had hoped to score some reportedly ‘world famous pies’ (aren’t they always world famous / award winners?!?) – was closed.

The name of the town, Jabiru, was taken from an enormous and stately bird that inhabits this region. Looking a little like a cross between a heron and a pelican, but wearing the black and white motley of a magpie, it sports a long curved horny beak for ferreting food out from under the reeds. This very debonair bird stands head and shoulders above the other feathery fowl of these wetlands, and it seems to strut around as if it knows it too!

The eponymous Jabiru

The caravan park itself was just as sparse as the town, but in its favour, each site had its own little toilet and shower cubicle and there was a pool to splash about it at the end of the day. What more does a little family need on the go need? Being in the middle of a national park, our little campsite was also teeming with wildlife. All manner of birds (Corellas, Black Cockatoos, and incalculable numbers of brightly coloured winged beasts) chirped and chittered in the trees, or swooped and flitted overhead. Of an evening, as the birds went home to roost, they were replaced by multitudes of hefty fruit bats, which darkened the skies as they headed to the abundant fruiting trees of the wet lands.

A smattering the birdlife around Kakadu – sadly, the bats were a little tricky to get a good snap of

Closer to the ground there was also plenty of scuttling and scurrying critters to see. In particular, this included swarms of green tree ants which were busily building leafy nests in the bushes next to our trailer. These nomadic arthropods seem to have an unquenchable desire to explore all places that lead up from the ground, in the hopes of finding the next perfect nest site. Unfortunately, that also included our caravan. But a quick trip to the supermarket for a tube of ‘ant sand’, which was then liberally sprinkled around our tyres, support braces, power cable, water hose and guy ropes, kept most of the marauding horde out of the trailer and back in nature where they belonged.

Busy green tree ants, building a new home next door to ours.

Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned heavy rains that had fallen upon the Northern Territory this year, several of the walks and trails within the park were still closed to the public (including Gunlom falls – complete with its plunge pool and swimming holes - which Nat was gagging to get to). Damn you Mother Nature, you’ve thwarted us again!

Still there was more than enough to keep us occupied. Most of our time was spent traipsing through long and windy trails; past stark and brightly coloured rocky mountains; fording creeks and streams; and hiking to view multitudes of ancient aboriginal rock art galleries in remote regions of the park.

Exploring the rocky trails of Kakadu

The rock art was truly spectacular, with walls of dozens of caves adorned with images were created over thousands of years. Interspersed amongst these ancient images, there were also more recent and indeed more intricate pictures, which were set down in the time frame of 100’s of years. All around the various sites, the old and new pictures were layered on top of each other – mingling stories and ideas from the distant past with those told by more contemporary teachers of aboriginal lore.

Amongst the sites visited were Ubirr and Nanguluwur art galleries, both of which emerged from the trail and opened into rocky amphitheatres. We all had enormous fun exploring the sandstone sites, imagining what life was like in times gone by, and searching through the images for both familiar animals and bizarre icons of dreamtime creatures and spirits. Surrounding each site, were well made walkways and helpful signs had been crafted to assist visitors navigate and make sense of what they are seeing. We also scratched our heads at some of the images, which were placed so high up the cave walls, or on the underside of an overhanging ledge, far out of reach without the aid of a very high ladder. Whoever the artist was of these cunningly placed gems, they were certainly determined that no one else would cover their work in times to come.

Rock art of Kakadu national park

Climbing to the top of a high mountain at the Ubirr site, we were treated to a breath-taking 360-degree view of this section of the park. On one side were wet lands stretching off into the distance. To the north were grasslands and forests, with puffs of smoke coming from fires that had been set to clear the scrub early in the dry season. To the west lay rocky-mountains, with towering stone columns and rough pebble slopes. But all around us was a brilliant blue sky, filled with eagles winging their way through the air on the thermal currents blasted upwards from the hot baked ground. Occasionally, these raptors would spot some critter fleeing from the burning grasses and swoop in to pick up their lunch. Probably slightly singed…

Amongst our wanderings around the rock art, we also took time to take to the waters of this vast wet land. The guides, however, almost seemed a little apologetic that we weren’t there during the massive migrations, which occur during the height of the season. Despite this, what we saw was certainly impressive enough! Flocks of birds, of all shapes, sizes and colours teamed amongst the half-submerged trees, or waded through floating islands of reeds.

Birds of the Kakadu wetlands

Our resident ‘Crocodile Spotter’, Nat, was also in fine form and was the first to spy many of the reptiles skulking in the water or warming their soft scaly hides on the muddy banks. As Nat announced each of her finds, the pilot of the water craft drew the boat in the direction she pointed. Thanks to her, we watched many a croc in it’s natural environment, including a particularly lazy brute lying in the shallows – who would occasionally throw his head back and chomp a handful of small fish that had wandering into the cool shade of his gaping maw. Sure, it wasn’t a big mouthful, but over the five minutes we watch him, he had at least half a dozen chomps. For a coldblooded creature, who doesn’t really need much food to survive, he looked like he was doing quite nicely for himself in that shady spot.

Many small mouthfuls make a dinner for this handsome chap

While we were out and about, we also took a spin out to a place we had heard about and wanted to see for ourselves. Cahill’s Crossing, a treacherous piece of road, which crosses the East Alligator River (strange name for a country without alligators…) from Kakadu to Arnhem land to the north. Arriving at the fast flowing river crossing, we had absolutely no intention of tackling the beast ourselves, but it was fun watching a handful of other vehicles pick their way across this patch of unforgiving water. Ruined cars lay strewn downstream, amongst the net casters and anglers chancing their luck at catching a barramundi. The boys could have stayed for hours watching in awe of these cars with their wheels nearly disappearing underwater as they went on their way across the river. But, we had our own, albeit smaller, rivers to cross to get home.

Cahill's Crossing: Nope. Not for me my friend...

Sure, it wasn’t as torrential as Cahill’s Crossing, but as this was my first – in my mind it almost could have been! I’m writing this a few weeks after we had our adventure in Kakadu, and looking back on it now (with a few more of these watery dips under my belt), it was probably pretty tame as far as water crossings go. But, as this was destined to be an adventure of learning and discovery from the start, I guess even a small water crossing was a large learning experience. As such, we dutifully recorded the event to mark this auspicious occasion (and took a few extra snaps, just for good measure).

Woo hoo!! (now that wasn't so bad, was it!?)

And so, with tyres wet and legs exhausted, we set our sights towards packing up and moving our digs to the bottom portion of the park; where we intended to stop for a night to see the last few spots that Kakadu had to offer…

…unfortunately, we never quite made it that far. But, I think I’ll leave that story for another day.

Bye ‘d bye,

Gregg

Dawrin - Top end of Aussie!

Date:	28/04/2017 – 02/05/2017
Location:	Darwin (Northern Territory)
Distance Travelled:	127 km
Temperature:	Min:	24.0
	Max:	32.7
Distance travelled so far:	5,000km (approx.)

It was sad to say goodbye to our little spot of paradise in Litchfield Park. For anyone thinking of passing through this way, I thoroughly recommend it. As we were packing up our trailer, a slightly larger Jayco trailer than ours pulled up next to our abundant camp site. The driver leaned out the window and asked if we were packing or unpacking. When we said that we were on our way out, he gleamed with delight and asked if we would mind them parking up next to us, so they could claim the spot when we left. It turns out, this family of fellow travellers had been on this very site a week earlier. They had gone off exploring other parts of the Northern Territory, but had decided they needed to return here as it had been so beautiful. Not a bad idea, and one we certainly toyed with over the coming weeks. But alas, we just simply weren’t able to fit a return journey into our already overflowing itinerary (here’s to dreaming though!).

In the process of packing up the trailer, I pulled my hardly used air compressor out of the car, with the intention of giving the tyre pressure a bit of a check and top up for the journey ahead. Hooking it up to battery (carefully following the instructions, of course), when I switched it on there was a puff of smoke from both the main unit and the in-line fuse, and then… well, nothing. There it sat on the ground – dead as a doornail. “Oh Poo…” I thought (well, words to that effect). Oh well, at least the tyres seemed to be in good enough shape to get us to Darwin (our next scheduled destination). Being a capital city, we were hopeful that might be able to get the compressor sorted out while we’re there.

Driving out of Litchfield park and pulling back on to the highway, we continued our journey north. This would be our last major journey in a northerly direction, because in the weeks to come we’d be heading back south (slightly) to Kakadu National Park, then starting our journey towards Western Australia.

As we approached Darwin, the road that led into the city was much like driving into any other large town. The roads became wider and more like those I’m used to driving on to work and back. Adverts started appearing on the embankments, as well as petrol stations, houses, suburbs and shopping centres; all appearing one after another as we moved towards this great mini-city of the north.

We checked into the Free Spirit caravan park, where we planned to stay for five nights. After the long haul ‘up the guts’ (a delightful Aussie saying that means driving straight up the centre of Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin), we figured it was probably time to find a place to chill out for a while – have a good clean out and take stock of our rations, as well as fix all of the slightly wonkily constructed and starting the break pieces of the camper trailer (including the back of the in-built chair, which I found to my astonishment was simply a piece of particle board held together by a single screw – no wonder it pulled out when I reached backwards one evening and toppled base over apex).

The caravan park was lovely, sporting a bar-side pool for the grown-ups and a bouncing pillow for the kids to hop on to their hearts content. Unfortunately, our first day was marred a little by some teenagers in the park who decided to pick on Ben. He wasn’t hurt, but felt threatened by this group. When I went to speak to their parents of these kids, the young teenaged-ringleader turned very aggressive, raising his fists to me and seemed to be itching for a fight. Unfortunately, his family weren’t much better, so in the end, I simply had to defuse the situation and move myself and my boys away. Heading to the reception to chat to the manager about what had happened, (who, as it happened, was a very big bloke and played for the local rugby team). He came out from the backroom and asked if it was such and such a family. He said he’d already had complaints about them, and that we were not to worry as he’d sort it out (once again, as in previous posts, I’m paraphrasing somewhat here). He returned to our campsite twenty minutes later and explained that he’d laid down the law and said that they would be leaving in the morning. Despite reassurances that all was sorted, both our boys were a little shaken by the experience and I could see that they were wary about leaving the safety of the caravan site for the rest of the day. The manager gave a little context about the family, who lived in a ‘dry’ rural aboriginal community down south from here; where, he said, the kids had been exposed to a lot of violence themselves. He explained that it wasn’t uncommon for families from these alcohol-free regions to come into Darwin, where the parents suddenly had access to alcohol and often over indulged; at times leading to hostility and aggression. It was certainly a raw life lesson for our kids, who thankfully have had a very safe and secure life in our little corner of Victoria. But, this experience provided much food for thought, as well as many questions over the next week or two. As time has now passed since that day, it seems that both our boys were able to make sense of it enough to know that not everyone in the world is aggressive and not everyone is a bully; however, it is good to have a level of caution at times – as there are, indeed, a few bad eggs out there.

Over the next few weeks, I found myself considering the parallels between these kids, who had been so aggressive in Darwin, and those I have met in my time working as a psychologist in New Zealand and Australia. When I think of it, Nat, our boys and I have been very lucky to grow up where we have (thanks immensely to the hard work and smart/fortuitous choices of our parents), where aggression simply isn’t the norm. Whereas, many kids across the world aren’t as lucky. Whether it be Broadmedows in Melbourne, patches of South Auckland, or other places across the globe where violence is more ingrained in communities. It’s such a shame that not everyone gets the same opportunities to simply be a kid for as long as they can, without exposure to attitudes, which ultimately take them down a path that keeps the youth detention centres up north full to the brim. And, sadly, in Northern Territory communities, full they are…

As a change of pace from the goings on of the day before, our first full day in Darwin was spent recuperating as a family at Crocodylus Park.

Crocodylus Park: Research and Education Centre

This was a somewhat weird mix of crocodile breeding/farming, as well as a wildlife park and zoo. The main attraction was clearly the crocs, displaying some of the most massive reptilian beasts I have ever seen. But, somewhat perplexingly, there were also a handful of lions and monkeys, and animals from various corners of the world. Dotted amongst these cages were a small menagerie of other Australian critters, including many snakes and other reptiles. At least these creatures were in-keeping with the Australian reptile theme they had going on here. Throughout our time at Crocodylus Park, the staff member we saw most (at feeding times, talks, and so forth) was an Irish chap, who did an excellent job of de-mystifying the iconic croc – as well as making sense of the strange mix of croc farm/wildlife park they ran there.

Crocs ahoy!

For a long time, saltwater crocs were hunted – not quite to the point of extinction – but enough to reduce their numbers by 95%. It seems that protecting this species has been a difficult task, particularly as they aren’t the cutest critters on the planet. So, farming crocs became the main way of generating revenue to protect the species in the wild. Doing so took the market out of poaching these animals, and ensuring most crocs hatched in captivity made it to breading age. The park side of Crocodylus Park has also become the residence of many a massive beast, who has made it to adulthood in the wild (only 1% of hatchlings survive, so these guys probably have some good genetics), but where the croc has become a danger to people (i.e., attacking people or losing their fear of humans and moving into inhabited areas). In other parts of Australia (e.g., Queensland) it seems that the usual response to such crocs is to kill them in order to remove them from being a threat to people. However, in the Northern Territory, with exception of a few crocs being given a cosy home in Crocodylus park, the onus has been placed firmly on the people who live or visit this region to not get bitten; rather, that is, than destroying crocs because they can be dangerous. Being ‘Crocwise’ is part of the school curriculum (go on, click on that link, the video is both cringe-worthy and fabulous!) and those people who do get attacked are quite often vilified on social media for being idiots who had put themselves in harm’s way. Y’know, “The croc wouldn’t have got him if he wasn’t being an idiot”, that sort of stuff.

Go on, be crocwise will ya!

During our time in Crocodylus park, we learned a lot about these fearsome reptiles while cruising through a wet land on a pontoon boat (with our guide’s Irish brogue entertaining us along the way). Ben fed a croc in one of the breeding enclosures and both boys had a cuddle with a couple of baby crocs (all over a meter long), as well as had massive pythons draped around them. Ben, he tells me, is now mad keen to get a snake and would desperately love to take home… Let’s see how that turns out!

Ben feeding crocs

Upon our return to our campsite, true to manager’s word, the family of errant teenagers had moved on. To my surprise, Daniel – who is ever the outspoken one – saw a boy who had been hanging around with these other boys the day before. When Daniel saw him, he said in very plain words, something to the effect of “you and the other boys weren’t nice to my brother”. “I know,” said boy looking sheepish, “I’m sorry.” And that was that. 

The next day we decided that we had let our boys off the hook far too much in terms of keeping up with their scholastic activities. As such, we took a trip to the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery. While have been away from home, Ben’s classmates have been learning about natural disasters – so what better place to get up close and personal with the impact of mother nature than exploring those that have befallen Australia’s most far flung city, Darwin. On Christmas eve, 1974, Darwin was struck by Cyclone Tracy; which resulted in one of the biggest disasters to befall a heavily populated area on Australian soil. The force of cyclone Tracy hit Darwin with average wind speeds of 100km/h and gusts of 160km/h, with the fastest windspeed being estimated at 260km/h. Needless to say, Darwin was all but flattened by the force of this cyclone. 66 people lost their lives and over 35,000 people were evacuated. Perhaps not the brightest or most cheerful way to spend an afternoon, but the Cyclone Tracy exhibition was certainly interesting. Ben spent hours jotting down notes and facts, which he later (only somewhat begrudgingly) turned into a report that he sent to his teacher back at school.

Cyclone Tracy Exhibition

As the first museum trip went well, we followed up with a visit to the Darwin Military Museum. Here we learned about the Japanese invasion of Darwin during World War II, as well as the importance of Darwin as a strategic port in the South Pacific Ocean. While some of the political intrigues that led up to the conflict were a little lost on the boys, there were also old massive gun turrets and tunnels to explore, as well as an assortment of artillery, vehicles and other military paraphernalia from various wars throughout the past century. As with our Cyclone Tracy experience, this was time well spent, learning about events from not-so-distant past in a far-flung corner of this country.

Darwin Military Museum

To brighten out time in Darwin a little, we also donned our mozzie repellent and headed out on a few evening escapades on Darwin’s waterfront.  A couple of days into our Darwin sojourn, we made our way to the outdoor Deckchair Cinema. With a backpack full of picnic paraphernalia, we nibbled on tuna rolls, cheese and bickies, dips and tasty cakes, as we watched the soon to be Aussie classic ‘Red Dog: True Blue’. The film was certainly fitting – set in outback Australia, where we had just spent weeks forging our way through the gritty red dust that coated everything in this film. It’s well worth a watch, especially if you can sit under the stars, as tiny bats flit back and forth in front of the screen, with the gentle rolling noise and tangy smell of the sea wafting in from nearby. Having the moon slowly creep up through the trees was also a nice touch… but if you’re not able to cobble together these atmosphere-inducing background elements – I’m sure you’d enjoy the film nonetheless.

Deckchair Cinema

Our second evening foray took us, along with the greater part of Darwin’s population, to the opening evening of this year’s season of night markets at the waterfront. On a makeshift laneway, set less than 50 meters from the beach, 100’s of stalls and food vans had sprung up overnight to hawk their wares to the passers-by who gathered under the stars. Our evening started with a quick nosey at the myriad of trinkets on sale in the various stalls, before heading down to the beach to watch fire jugglers and sip a glass of wine on the sand as the sun went down. It’s almost a little cruel for the inhabitants of Darwin, who have such a lovely beach caressed by warm ocean waters, but dip your toes in the water and you are playing Russion roulette with a host of beasties that lurk there. You see, there be crocs in them thar’ waters! Not to mention other critters which nip, sting and poison their way through anything that enter their domain. So, being content to gaze at the waves and listen to their inviting siren song of crashing foam in the sweltering heat, we watching the sky turn a gentle apricot colour as the sun swapped places with the moon who came on to take the evening shift. Dinner was eventually gathered from a variety of food stalls throughout the market, and we whiled away a few hours watching street performers and listening to the music and sounds of throngs of people chatting and laughing. The night ended with a firework display – admittedly, it was no Sydney Harbour Bridge at the turn of the Millenium, but it was fun all the same.

The Darwin Waterfront Bight Markets

The next day, having been teased and tormented by the sea the evening before, we returned to waterfront – where the clever Darwinians have come up with a way of swimming at the beach, without going within spitting distance of the actual water… Yup, sitting near the waterfront is a large wave pool, which churns out perfect waves for twenty minutes every half and hour, and turns into a glassy pool for the remaining 10 minutes. From the first guests arriving (us, as it turns out), it goes on through this cycle all day until the last stragglers are turfed out as the sun sets. We spent spent hours bobbing up and down in the artificial waves, catching a few breakers on the boogie boards (which were available to anyone who cared to use one), and diving underwater wearing our goggles to watch the waves roll and crash above our heads. Other than a bit of sunburn, the day was brilliant.

Wave Pool!!

And so, with that,  our time in Darwin came to a close. But before we left, we made sure we took a trip to the local Anaconda store (from where I have purchased the now defunct air compressor a few months earlier, in Melbourne). I must say, the store manager was incredibly helpful and he was hell bent on making sure our compressor was either fixed or replaced by the time we left Darwin to head off into Kakadu National Park. Having given the compressor the once over, it was apparent that the fuse had blown; which we agreed would certainly explain at least one of the two puffs of smoke I saw when I turned it on. The trouble is, the fuse was a 50 amp, standard size, blade fuse; and not one automotive of the electronics stores I visited throughout the rest of the day stocked these fuses in 50 amp configurations. In the end, I left the task of contacting the manufacturer with the store manager, who took to it like a dog with a bone. As it turned out, the manufacturer of the compressor was also one of the few stockists of 50 amp, standard size, blade fuses in Australia, and they weren’t able to ship us any in time for us to leave. So, since we couldn’t replace the fuse and check if the other components were ok, we were handed a brand spanking new unit to take with us. As, the store didn’t carry the same unit as we had bought, we ended up being given a much better and more expensive compressor (which I’d originally wanted to buy, but couldn’t really afford at the time). So, all in all, double thumbs up for Anaconda (Darwin Store) and double thumbs up for our shiny new air compressor that has since proved to be awesome!

By Pete A (http://thumbsandammo.blogspot.com.au/)

So, with compressors swapped, tyres inflated, food and water replenished, we said goodbye to Darwin and turned our wheels southward towards Kakadu National Park. Hang on to your hats, this next adventure should be a good one!

Bye ‘d bye,

Gregg