Saturday July 19th & Sunday July 20th "Kakadu National Park"

---

Saturday July 19th

We began the day by getting on the Kakadu Highway just outside of the park. Our first stop was at Gunlom, a small waterfall and plunge pool. To get there we had to drive along a thirty something kilometre unsealed (dirt) road. The road was in decent condition however we were not supposed to be on unsealed roads and it was going to take at least an hour each way to get there. We made it about 700 metres before calling it quits and turning back. The next place we stopped was called yellow waters. It was similar to Florida’s everglades with light boats operating up and down it and crocodiles inhabiting its waters. After watching a crocodile here for a good while we continued on to Mirrai lookout. It was a 1.5 km climb up a very steep hill to the lookout station at the top. From here you could see the southern half of the park all the way to the escarpment dividing the public land from the Aboriginal private land. Although it gave you a good perspective of the immense size of the park it was not worth the gruelling climb to get there. We got back in the car after this and headed to Nourlangie. This is where we really got to appreciate the significance of Kakadu N.P. All the other national parks we went to were for their landscape or waterfalls. We had heard Kakadu was popular with tourists, but we didn’t really know why it was popular. Turns out that Kakadu N.P. is not popular for its landscape, but for its aboriginal history. All over the place there is rock art and stories, some dating back 40,000 years. Nourlangie was the first place we went where the aboriginal rock art was on display. We did a 1.5 kilometre circular walk here. It was difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the rock art as it was of legendary figures relating to their beliefs. The only real thing that caught us was the 20,000 year old dating on the majority of the rock art we saw at this site. The next place we went to was the Park Headquarters and Bowali Visitors Centre. We were now half way done the park. At the visitors centre we looked through a native museum, looked through the souvenir shop and finally watched a 45 minute video by Australian Geographic on the landscape and significance of Kakadu N.P. and the Arnhem Land. The more you are exposed to the aboriginal stories and to their drawings you begin to appreciate their stories and their creativity. The aboriginals before white people arrived lived a nomadic lifestyle. They had no form of prosecution or written language. They used drawings as a way of passing story down generation to generation, with the elders teaching the young children lessons through their legendary figures mistakes and teaching them how to hunt through illustrations on the rock walls.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in Ubirr, the farthest north you can get on sealed roads. Here we set up camp at the Merl Campground which cost $5.40 each. After setting up camp we went down to the East Alligator River. The river was named by explorers who did not know that there are only crocodiles in Australia. We were told that we would have a very good chance of seeing crocodiles here so we went down to the banks to test out luck. We did see two however they were just laying out on the other side of the river. After this our plan was to go to Ubirr rock art site for sunset, which had been recommended to us. We got there an hour and a half before sunset so we decided we would check out some of the art before climbing to the sunset viewing area. We ran into a park ranger who was giving a presentation. The ranger explained how the art we were standing beneath was the “bush tucker” menu. Through simple images of the local wildlife it explained the tasty parts of the animal, how to cooks it and how to catch it. Finally we followed the ranger up to the lookout where he explained about the flood plains below. He told of how the white man introduced buffalo into the area for food and their pelts to be used as drive belts and fan belts pre synthetics. He described how the buffalo destroyed the flood plains and how once synthetics were created the buffalo were removed and the flood plains had grown back. The presentation ended fifteen minutes before sunset allowing us enough time to climb to the highest point on the cliff and watch the sun set over the flood plains.

Sunday July 20th

After packing up from the night before we went to another site on the East Alligator River to find more crocodiles. We had less luck this time only finding one crocodile. There was nothing else to see in Kakadu N.P. after this so we drive 240 kilometres to Darwin. After setting up our tent we went into the city. We went on the internet for the first time in over two weeks and then checked out Charles Darwin National Park.

---