The water is cold and the mosquito’s are free

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DAY 229

I awoke in the night to the sound of some birdsong, although I have not idea what bird it was or what the call signified and blowed if I can remember what the sound was, so I cannot even describe it or look it up in my little book of Australian birds. All I remember thinking was how amazingly different the Australian wildlife can be.

We both awoke at 7.00 feeling shattered, this heat really seems to be taking the energy from us. Andy brought me a cup of tea and I lay in bed drinking it and reading my book for a while, well I am on holiday.

Even though we are moving today we are in no rush, we are not travelling far as we are remaining in Kakadu just to a different campsite and to see the different sights of that area. When I finally surface, I knock up a breakfast of boiled eggs with bread and butter. It makes a delicious change.

It is already hot and we are now packing up, the campers on the other side of us, Paul and Joanne who arrived yesterday are already packed and drive past us on their way out, they stop for a brief chat and wish us well on their journey, they are from Victoria and on a 12 week journey, having come up the centre to Darwin.

We continue packing and then get chatting to Colin and Libby on the other side, they had a better night last night, and although are now packed and ready to go, they have a problem with a wheel on the caravan and now need to change it before heading off, the irony is that the wheel wrench that he has does not fit the caravan, so he went and borrowed one from the Peter, the campground manager and although it is the same size as Colin’s actually fits.

Finally we pull out of site just after 10.00 and before Colin and Libby who were ready long before we were. We head to Jabiru where we will be filling up with diesel before heading toward Ubir to see the aboriginal rock art and camp at Merl campground for a night or two.

In Jabiru, the diesel is about $1.46, we fill both the main and the sub tank, a guy next to us has a smallish truck with a diesel tank on the back when he is filling it up and when we look for the first time the cost is over 855.00 dollars and still counting, and before long it has gone around past 999 litres.
Before heading off, I add a couple of well deserved ice lollies to the bill, just as well because when I got out to the truck Andy was only going to let me in if I had ice lollies, SO I called his bluff.

It was a short distance to the turn off for Ubir, the scenery was as amazing and jaw dropping as now has become so familiar on this journey, and lets face it what a great opportunity for me as Andy is usually rendered speechless, yes I know it makes a change.

We drive round Merl looking for a suitable spot, we drove round twice, but managed to find a nice cosy little corner for us near the entrance. The tent is soon up and we relax in the shade with a cup of tea and a light bite for lunch.

I sat and carried on reading my book, I am close to the end and feel the need to read it so that I can pass it on at the next opportunity, this one was given to me by Liz when we were at Denham, many campsites have small corners for a book swap so I will either just leave it or look for another interesting one, although I shouldn’t really as I have another two on standby for reading.

The shade is a welcome cool area from the beating sun, we are slathered up with factor 30 sun lotion as has become pretty much a daily chore, a necessary chore, however on top of that we have an abundance of mozzie spray, your skin begins to feel like an oil slick it has so much protection on it, one hug and we will slip freely through each others arms.

The mozzies are around all day every day, as I said before they are relentless, Andy who seems usually not to be affected is being bitten more than I am, I was horrified when he took off his t-shirt earlier to reveal hundreds of bites all over his back, most of them have come up in blisters too.

We decide to get moving up to Ubir, only 3 kilometres from here, to see the aboriginal art. You can only enter this site between 8.00am and sunset at this time of year, there is a fine of around $5000 dollars if you are on this site outside of these hours. It is based on aboriginal belief, they do not want you here after dark, albeit they have to protect this valuable piece of heritage some of these rules do exist to protect us from some of their beliefs that can cause ill health if the wrong thing is done.

We wander around the area to see the art that is painted on rock faces using Ochre and animal blood, there are information boards that tell us what the pictures represent. You are not allowed to touch as the art is easily damaged, there are barriers to stop us from going to close, they also have to make an effort to protect them from the elements as the wind and rain too can cause a lot of damage.

The pictures reflect changes in the environment and aboriginal society over many thousands of years. Some paintings are particularly important as they are believed to have been painted by the first people of the creation era, the Dreamtime, who formed the land and its contents.

We wander around for a long while, we see a ranger walking through with some aboriginals he is telling them the story about the rocks and even takes time to explain one piece of rock in particular that has fallen away from the main group. A crack had appeared one day and one of the traditional owners was concerned it would fall and kill someone, he left a bamboo stick in to see if it moved overnight and it had, four days later the rock came away and lies where it fell.

We walk up to the look out past plenty more art, there is no defined path just some arrows indicating a fairly easy route to the top. As we near the top we start to see the views ahead of us, they are simply jaw dropping, we can see vast areas of wetland, rocky outcrops and the escarpment of Arnhem Land before us. The view is simply amazing, however this is a little bit bittersweet for me at the moment.


Arnhem Land is the Australian Home for Aboriginals, it is un accessible without a permit to enter, and we are thinking about trying for a permit to enter, it will possibly one of those places you may never ever get to see again, you never know the Aboriginal elders may just say, “That’s it” no more no one can come in!

We did not mention during yesterdays outing my camera started to play up, it seemed that the shutter was remaining open and over exposing the pictures, the camera was flashing an error message and telling me to take the battery out and then put it back in, it worked for a while, then went again. I put it down to the humidity so did not use it until I tested it again in the evening when it worked perfectly.

I figured that perhaps it needs a bit of a service, well it has been round the clock once, or perhaps I should say it has been round the globe once, this camera is well used especially since coming on this trip. So decided then that we will sort something out when we get to Darwin.

However, as soon as we started walking this afternoon, I took two pictures and then the same thing happened, I thought again maybe the humidity, but this time something in the lens seems to have stuck, I cannot focus on anything, the picture is dark all the way round the outside and you can see a virtual pin prick of a picture through the lens.

So sadly for me these fabulous views we are seeing this afternoon I cannot take a single picture, so Andy is in the saddle for this afternoon’s photography, the pressure is on, but knowing him he will stand up to the plate and do the very best job he can.

We walk around the top of the lookout and admire the stunning views, thankfully a breeze is evident on the top so we are cooled briefly from the fierce heat from the sun. Soon it is time to walk back down again.

Andy Is walking down the rocks in his flip flops it’s a little bit treacherous, and see’s two ladies helping an older Gentleman, he hears them say well dad you have got this far for a young bloke of 86.
Andy reaches out his hand a clasps the Young Gentleman’s hand and helps him up the rock, he also helps the tow ladies up and they all thank him.

We get down to the bottom of the viewing rock and sit under a tree for a while watching the world go by.

We will come back up here late tomorrow afternoon, so that we can see watch the sunset; although you do have to be out before darkness descends fully in order to comply with regulations. I hope that by then I will have resolved something with my camera.

Back at camp we both go for a shower, we wanted to cool down, there was no worry there as the water was only lukewarm, I could hear some grey nomads in the showers next to me grumbling about it. I think the water tank is leaking so the water is not given the opportunity to heat up fully with the solar effect..

We have an early tea tonight, that is to say we eat tea while it is still daylight so that there is no chance of flies and other insects getting into the food, we are both quite hungry. I open the kitchen box to get the saucepan out and find the box is full of tiny tiny ants, they seem to have a route in yet are all over the place so I decide to clean out the box. I pick up a roll of tin foil, they are all over that, I look in the box and find a tiny dead spider, it seems the ants have found something that they want, this is what they are after, they are all over it. I tap it all out on the ground and off they all go.

Soon the box is clean and back to normal, the rangers have popped around for the camp fees of $10 per person per night, so a relaxing evening is on the cards, well it is for one of us anyone and that is the one that is not typing up the blog. Andy is sat listening to my Ipod (his battery has gone down, well, the Ipod battery has gone down that is to say), still he did type The last blog “Donald McGregor”

I test my camera with each of my lens and we figure out that the lens is the problem not the camera, I am a little more pleased as this means I can at least use the camera except that I am missing a huge range between 20mm and 75mm, so tomorrow night at least I should still be able to do some landscape shots of the sunset over Arnhem Land and the wetlands of Kakadu. When we arrive in Darwin we will find a dealer or service agent, I have religiously cleaned my equipment but in this harsh often dusty environment it will be no surprise if some dust has got in and upset the electronics. Still I will wait to see what the experts say, I hope I don’t need to fork out for a new lens.

There are nowhere near as many insects here as we have had over the last few nights down at Mardugal, but those Mozzies are beginning to be a nuisance, so we go and sit in the tent, I am surrounded by every possible tin of spray that is supposed to eradicate intrusive insects, but none of them work entirely, I think they mutate after a while and become immune.

The hot balmy evening is now cooling slightly, that is a relief, I will go and have a cool shower again before bed.

I am listening to my favourites on iTunes as I type up the blog, all of those familiar tracks have some great memories and make me think of everyone at home. Still I am not blue I am having a ball on this trip, well I would have been if I could have brought a ball gown with me from home, but there was no room in my luggage.

Its been an amazing day and feel privilege on the things that we have been luckily enough to see.

We retire to bed exhausted hoping for another exciting day tomorrow.

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Photos

Rock Paintings
These are 1000's of years old

Family Shot
The Godfrey Family from Victoria

Place Name
Have you ever seen a place name like this

Aboriginal Art
A fish

Comments

[Helen Sheridan]

Memories
You are bringing back memories of Ubir to us. What a fantastic view. Straight out of crocodile Dundee. I thought they had doctored the image for the film but not at all. Just stunning and the sunset was worth the walk. Lots of love, Helen

[kangaroojack]

Ubirr
Hi Helen, we did not even consider where Crocodile Dundee was filmed, Andy and I said we should watch the film again to see if we recognise it. The sunset was beautiful, there are so many people sitting on the rock to watch it. When the sun goes down it lights up and changes the landscape behind you, it is stunning and most definitely worth the walk (twice!!) It would be good to see it when the sun comes up, but you are not allowed to get in until 8.00 and it is too late for sunrise then. C xx