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Published: August 29th 2006
Yellow Water Sunrise
This was taken at sunrise during the Yellow Water Cruise in Kakadu National Park. Amazing feeling (and to be up early enough to see it!A really BIG HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY to our very good friend, Dom. Unfortunately his wife Deb is about to have another baby, so there was no celebration, but we will help him make up for that when we come through Sydney early next year.
Before I start the travel part of the blog - I have to tell you an hilarious story. A few of you have asked how we have been getting on, given that we are spending every day together and part of it is cooped up in a caravan. Well……one morning while still in Darwin we had a joint ‘spit the dummy’ incident over something as stupid as whether the TV weather report showed a sun with cloud over it for Broome or a plain sun. It got as heated as it can get when you are just 3metres from the van next door! So I stormed off in silence to the bathroom (5 steps from kitchen). At this point you need to know that for a few years I have been taking natural vitamins which help regulate hormones for women over 30 and had just got one out to take before the tiff and when I
Anbangbang Billabong
There is water in the background covered with lillies. It was quite beautiful. came back into the kitchen and asked where my tablet was Wes declared defiantly that he had taken it by mistake. Well, I could be angry no longer and rolled around the floor laughing at him. For the next 24 hours I kept jibing him that all he wanted to do was cuddle and talk about his feelings - he was worried he was going to grow boobs.
Back to the travel news. We left Darwin on Thursday 3/8 and headed to Kakadu National Park which is 258 km away. It’s a huge national park and we camped at township of Jabiru and did two separate drives to Aboriginal Art sites and a really pretty billabong (the photo of it with the water lily was taken while wading up to my ankles in an area where saltys inhabit - anything to get the photo). The Aboriginal Art is historically incredible - some of these paintings have been dated as being over 20000 years old. There is even one of a Tasmanian tiger for which there is no scientific evidence as to when it existed on the mainland, and has even been extinct in Tasmania - its last known habitat,
Rock Art
This is Nabulwinjbulwinj (prounounced Nar-bull-win-bull-win) and he is the dangerous dreamtime spirit who eats females after striking them with a yam. Wes keeps threatening to strike me with a yam - but I've seen his yam and I keep right away!! for about 100 years.
The next morning we got up at 5.00am (yes this is not a typo) and drove down to Cooinda to go on the sunrise Yellow Water Cruise. Now this was the other side of life - the wildlife side. The sun rose over the South Alligator River wetlands and the birdlife literally came to life. We saw white-breasted sea eagles, jabirus, brolgas, whistling ducks, Azure Kingfishers (these are truly beautiful), Nankeen Night herons (known locally as the “I like me a lot” bird because they spend most of their time watching their own reflection in the water - they are actually looking for food), Jacanas (known as the Jesus bird because they walk on water), flocks of magpie geese and all manner of well known wading birds. Not to mention the odd Salty or three, all going about the start of their day. The cruise went for 2 hours and it was worth every cent and the early start.
There are very mixed views on Kakadu - some say Kakadon’t. We tend to agreed, if it wasn’t for the cruise, we would have been quite disappointed - we thought the Litchfield National Park was much
more picturesque in terms of scenery - but Kakadu was great for the wildlife and aboriginal art sites. It's one of those things that you have to experience to decide for yourself - there are so many mixed reports about lots of places - some enjoy them, some don't.
On leaving the cruise we headed south to visit Gunlom Falls on the southern outskirts of the park and then drove on to stay at a roadside camp 33km west of Katherine. The next night was another free roadside camp at Big Horse Crossing on the banks of the Victoria River.
Then it was over the border to WA and Kununurra as our first stop (833km from Jabiru in Kakadu). We booked into a beautiful caravan park on the edge of Lake Kununurra and prepared ourselves to leave the caravan here to go offroad to El Questro Station on Wednesday morning.
El Questro was 155km from Kununurra, part of which is on the infamous gravel Gibb River Rd. El Questro is a 1,000,000 acre cattle property that they have added some tourist facilities to over the last few years, such as a common campground, private riverside campsites, bar, shop,
restaurant, and some posh facilities at the homestead (which we didn’t even see). Voyages Group took it over about a year before so its likely to become a bigger tourist deal soon (they manage Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon, Cradle Mountain, Turtle Island etc). We booked a private riverside campsite and set up the tent etc about 6km from the station township. We had our very own babbling brook as the river flowed over large stones down a small bank just in front of the tent. Magnificent. This was true bush camping though - no power, no water, no showers unless you drive back to the main campground, and a pit toilet about 800yds away. Still magnificent. We didn’t bother with campground showers, we just bathed in the running water of the river - very refreshing!!
We stayed 3 nights and had a campfire every night. One night we went up to Swinging Arm bar and sat around their campfire to listen to the cowboys singing. I went on a horse ride through the station at 7am one morning (no, not another typo). There were 4 riders including the leader but like a song - there were 4 at the
start and one fell off and only 3 came back! The leader had to call the station on the two way to get one girl picked up because she came off with a thud when we were galloping though a paddock, she was ok just a bit of skin off and a bumped head. It was a great ride nevertheless, we rode through some creeks and rivers - one deep enough that I had to put my feet right up. Couldn’t move the next day though - muscles I haven’t used in a few years.
We also went to Zeebedee Springs which was a tropical oasis in the middle of all this red dirt and open ranges. They are permanent thermal springs about 28-32 degrees in a series of rocks pools with small waterfalls cascading down between each one. The water was so clear that you can bearly see it in the photo - it looks like Wes is just sitting amongst the rocks but he is actually in a small pool. After a swim here, we drove to Emma Gorge (about 30km away on the same station), which is another tourist facility with posh tent camping. We had
lunch at the open air restaurant which was very nice.
We also did 4 of the 4WD tracks - Branco’s lookout which had beautiful 180 degree views of the river valleys, mountains and plains; Explosion Gorge which was partly through a riverbed with really big river stones and the 4WD felt like a clumsy walking robot. At the end of this drive was a beautiful deep wide river gorge - and we had it all to ourselves. As there was no swimming because of the crocodiles (“Salties’), we decided to throw the fishing lines in to see if we could catch an elusive Barramundi, but after about a dozen casts, I decided to cast into a small cove near us in some shallower water, only to lodge the lure into a branch overhanging the water. Wes to the rescue. He clambered gingerly up the tree and out onto the flimsy branch holding the lure. He dislodged it and threw it back to me. Then as he was climbing down, his sunglasses came off his head and dropped into the water. The banks were steep and the riverbed dropped away sharply so the water was quite deep here, but as
they were expensive sunglasses, he was going in. Luckily the water was crystal clear, so he could see them from the surface. With me watching out for crocs on the bank, it was down to his jocks, and with a big gulp he ducked under. It took about 3 tries before he managed to get to them with his toes and he high-tailed it out of there almost walking on water. Needless to say, that was the end of fishing for the day.
Another of the tracks was to Pidgeon Hole and again it finished on a large expanse of the river in largely unexplored country - and we had this one all to ourselves too. So the lines went in again (no snags this time) and Wes was frolicking around in his birthday suit (even more excited than when he was able to wear shorts - lucky for him there were no more wild casts by me!!)
All the tracks were quite challenging, through river crossings and really steep rough inclines, but the views at the end of each were stunning. We had a new moon rise on one of these nights and it was like being
in the middle of an outback painting.
Then it was sadly time to go back to Kununurra but gladly a hot shower awaited. We rechecked back into the caravan park on Saturday 12/8, got the van out of their storage area and set it up again right next to Lake Kununurra to stay for the next week. Weatherwise we haven't had a day under 32 degrees and some as hot as 38 with varying levels of humidity from dry to very humid.
This blog has become too big to continue, so I’ll split it up and tell you about Kununurra separately.
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Dom
non-member comment
The Hat
Love the hat and cut off top Wes...... did not know you were travelling with the village people..... Thanks for the wine, will drink in the new kitchen when its done... keep safe and see you in 07