Darwin and Kakadu

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Spending two days in Darwin was just about as much tropical heat as I could take. It was sooo humid up there and yet they were coming to the end of the 'Wet' season so it was not as bad as it could have been!!!

Darwin is a nice city, with the CBD minutes from the ocean. Thought the most frustrating thing was that we could not go in the water for fear of jellyfish, sharks, crocs, deadly sea snakes etc etc. When it's so tropical, not being able to jump in is torture.

Visiting Kakadu at the end of the Wet season was just awesome. The landscape was lush and the amount of wildlife around there was unbelievable. We had seen about 5 snakes on our travels up to that point, then in Kakadu we probably saw over 20. There were lizards, birds and roos everywhere, we were almost falling over the wildlife.

The two main attractions in Kakadu were of course the salt water crocs 'salties' and the aboriginal art. We had seen loads of signs warning about salties from about Katherine northwards, but we had not seen any real life crocs, so we were pretty determined to find some. We booked ourselves onto a wildlife cruise along Yellow Water, the wetlands out there. At the start of the cruise the guide explained that it was a wildlife tour and we were not guaranteed to see any crocs, though the previous tour had spotted a big 3 metre croc swimming down the river. So the tour began and after about an hour and a half we had seen lot of birdlife and some suspicious looking logs, but no salties. With about half an hour to go the sun began to set and a few heads began to rise out of the water - it was feeding time!! In total we saw about seven crocs close to the boat, each about 3meters in length. They were interested in us, but thankfully more interested in catching their dinner. The guide began to tell us about the crocs and I could not believe that the croc's jaw contains 3,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, but that the jaw can be kept closed with an elastic band!!!

Kakadu has so many highlights, but the other big attraction for us was the aboriginal art. The art here is more detailed than elsewhere in Aus and Kakadu has some fantastic examples dotted around the park. We visited two of the main areas of interest and we have attached some photos. The art in the photos is up to 20,000 years old! Who says Australia doesn't have history!

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Photos

Lightening Man
He creates all the lightening.