Rock art, wild wildlife and 4WD adventures in Kakadu

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During my time here I grew more and more fond of Aboriginal art. I do think it's over-commercialized (you can buy fridge magnets, ashtrays, tea towels etc. I am even wearing a T-shirt with Aboriginal style painting but that I find OK), but it's lovely in museums and it's simply amazing to see the originals: the aboriginals used to paint on rock walls, as they were nomads. The paintings had different reasons: from teaching the kids, to transferring messages to other Aborigines that may come to the area - like what bushtucker (bush food) you can find here, and sometimes pure fun. I saw rock art in Uluru, in Katherine, but a lot of it in Kakadu. I went to Nourlangie rock, it's a nice place also seeing nature by itself but it's really interesting to see the art work on the rock walls. It teaches a lot about their culture and reach tradition and history, even if there's so little evidence (in fact, only this rock paintings - there's no other written history).

Then I went to experience the other side of Kakadu - the wildlife. I took a cruise on the Yellow Water which is half a river and half a swamp, reach in crocs ("salties" this time, yes the ones from Crocodile Dandee!) but also birds, ducks and other creatures. The highlight was the pair of bee eater birds. They were sitting there on a branch together, looking so romantic, and I couldn't avoid thinking of a quotation I saw the other day on a poster in a souvenir shop (amazing in what stupid places you can find such nice things), written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1939: "Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction". These 2 tiny beautiful birds were doing just that...

During this cruise I started chatting with the couple sitting just ahead of me. Janine and Simon are from Melbourne and only on a short vacation here. Their friends in Darwin let them use their 4WD Toyota Landcruiser for a few days and here they were in Kakadu. Without thinking more than a second I asked to join them the next day going to the famous Kakadu waterfalls - Jim Jim and Twin Falls. They are only accessible by 4WD and if you don't have one you can take a tour for 140$ but joining them seemed like a much better idea, and their company was great and made it a lot more fun.
In the evening we had dinner together in Cooinda, and I finally tried the famous NT fish - Barramundi (you can't avoid hearing about it here). It's really not bad!

And so on Thursday I joined them on board the Toyota and we headed to the falls. The last 10 km were a tough 4WD with creeks crossing etc., and on the way the Twin Falls you even have to cross a river that is about 60cm deep! That was awesome! But let's not forget, the waterfalls were the idea, not the 4WD drive... Jim Jim is almost drying up but the plunge pool is beautiful even if very cold. We got a very refreshing swim (you do get used to the temperature eventually and it's so hot outside that you dry in seconds). It was real fun. In Twin falls you can't swim - some "salties" are spotted there every season. But the falls are really beautiful (unfortunately the best shooting position is from the middle of the pool, so the pictures don't do well - it looked much better in real life.

Those were 2 really beautiful days in Kakadu, and the next destination was another national park, not far away. After napping for half an hour on the way back from the falls, I decided to drive all the way to other park. Well, only 350km... you get so used to these numbers here, that starting the drive at 6PM didn't sound crazy... I arrived in 20:30 just to find that the places were fully booked but after a day like that I had the best night sleep, in my car.

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Photos

A pair of bee eaters in love
Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction"

Jim Jim waterfall
I actually swam in that freezing cold water hole that you see there! but it was fun

Twin falls
Here you don't really wanna swim - crocs are present!