Mozzies and Bogans

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Last weekend we went on an organized two-day tour of Kakadu National Park (pronounced Ga-ga-doo). Really beautiful place with lots of Aboriginal rock paintings, many that are thousands of years old! As per usual, there were plenty of "look out for the crocs" signs but our tour guide said it was safe to swim in this one location where there was freshwater and a waterfall! And we did loads of hiking. It was beautiful. It was rainy the whole time, which was great because it's much cooler than when the rains stop and the humidity build up starts. On the down side, the mozzies were full on (translation: the mosquitoes were very plentiful).

During our hikes we saw a few wallabies hopping around -they are SO cool and we also went on a jumping croc tour. The boatie (boat driver) was such a bogan, known to North Americans as "loser", "hoodlum", and/or "racist". He kept making 'jokes', which no one on the boat laughed at, about how crocodiles love to eat stupid humans and that nobody who's smart has ever died in the jaws of a croc. He said stuff like "if you feel something hard on your backside it's just my foot kicking you off the boat", "if the boat capsizes don't expect me to help you're on your own", "to the people who wore colourful clothing -thank you- crocodiles love colours best, notice how I'm wearing dark clothing", etc etc etc. He was simply not the finest specimen we humans have to brag about, you know? And he kept calling the crocs "rat bags" anytime we had to wait more than a minute or so for them to jump up. The crocs on the other hand, were totally amazing!!! Oh, and the reason the crocs jump up is because the boatie's assistant held this giant fishing rod-like thing over the edge of the boat with a big piece of meat tied to it. When we would see a croc, the boat would stop and the croc would swim up towards the meat. The assistant would hold the meat up quite high and the croc would stare at it for a while and then jump up to get it! Very very impressive creatures. And scary.

Another incredible site was the hawks! The boatie's assistant threw little pieces of meat over the side of the boat and the hawks performed for us. They organized themselves into a line-up and soared just above the boat (totally incredible to see. They were SO CLOSE we could see every detail of their feathers, face, beaks, feet, etc) and then they took turns swooping about a metre away from the side of boat to catch the meat in their claws, they would swoop up to the back of the line-up. One after the next they just kept soaring above us and then swooping down and back. Again and again. We would have watched this for hours, minus the commentary of the bogan boatie.

We slept in a tent on Saturday night, somewhat worried that the dingos would come. We could hear them howling and it was pretty unsettling. The guide told us to bring everything inside our tents, in case they came, and he warned us not to walk around without a good flashlight because the snakes like to come and play at night and if you step on one, it'll suck to have to get to a hospital in the middle of the night. We both had to go pee a few times during the night, from all the water we drank to stay hydrated, and man, it was a painstakingly long and arduous process. Here's the run-down:

-scorpion shoe check
-unzip and zip tent door with ninja speed
-silently curse the mozzies
-walk in fear to an appropriate peeing location, with headlamp
-withhold screams of fright as the giant fruit bats fly around and squeal in their maniacal way
-silently curse the mozzies
-go pee and pray that a snake doesn't come and bite me in the ___ while I'm squatting
-walk in fear back to the tent
-unzip and zip tent door with ninja speed
-silently curse the mozzies and kill those that made it into the tent
-pretend to go back to sleep but really lay awake wondering if the dingo noises are getting closer

Good times!

Keep scrolling down for more pictures!

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