Kakadu National Park and on to Darwin

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We’re in Darwin after several nights camping in Kakadu National Park a couple hundred kilometres east of here. What an amazing place; a huge wetlands basin containing 3 large rivers full of crocodiles, eagles and other wildlife, that almost dries up every year before the annual monsoons come. My concern over all the bush fires we’ve seen the last few weeks now makes me smile. At least a third of the million acres in Kakadu burns every year. Seems it’s the local (Aboriginal) way of replenishing their food supply and preventing the “big one” that would actually do some serious damage. What increases the intrigue of the place is that not only are many Aboriginals still living in the area, in the sandstone cliffs that partially surround the basin are thousands of Aboriginal paintings some literally tens of thousands of years old (and some only a few decades old).

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