Advertisement
Published: September 8th 2014
Edit Blog Post
A Large Female Estuarine Crocodile
The females don't grow quite as large as the males, although this one was huge! They cool off by opening their mouth. They also have a skin flap at the back of their throat to allow them to swallow food under water without drowning. We found out from the caravan park owner that the nearest place to get our flat tyre fixed is Jabiru so we’d better not go on any more dirt roads until then. Then, as we were getting set to move on we saw a flock of Red-Collared Lorikeets enjoying the lawn sprinkler, flying in and out through the spray. We’d also seen them looking for water near our van so I put out a plastic box with some in. It didn’t attract the Lorikeets but we did get three Northern Rosellas down. Unlike our Victorian Rosellas, they are blue and yellow and have a black cap on their heads. I also spotted a Friarbird, with its black lump on top of its beak.
We drove to Mardugal, where we set up camp under some trees in an unpowered site for $20 (the bush site has no power) and then on to Cooinda, where we could buy our National Park Passes ($25 ea) that allowed us to use the park for up to 14 days. There are penalties if you don’t have passes if asked for them. We also booked a 2.45pm Yellow Water River Cruise that goes for
Feral Donkeys on the Way to Kakadu
Every time we go out in this area we seem to encounter a different species of feral animal waiting to jump in front of our ute! an hour and a half.
Just up the road, at the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre, we sat in the shade of a big tree and had a picnic lunch, then went into the Centre to see the displays. They were very well laid out and used models and examples of the real things, under glass. I found the information about all the uses for a Paperbark Tree particularly interesting, such as making a canoe, or a food carrier or a torch. The torch was the centre of a Banksia that smoulders and is wrapped in paperbark and bound with fibres from the Pandanas tree. It would continue burning for hours.
There was also a winding “river” painted on the floor with the fish and animals painted in it and details of how and when to get them and what to do with them to prepare them for eating. One was a File Snake, which lives in the water and has such a rough skin that they use it like sandpaper, after eating the flesh, of course.
It was then time to go down to the Jetty for the cruise. We watched
Green Ant Nests
The bundles at the top of the tree are nests made by Green Ants. They use a thread, rather like spider's web, to join a group of leaves together so they form a sealed cocoon of live leaves. an Intermediate White Egret fishing next to the boats and then boarded, along with one other couple. Our guide, Murray, first took us downstream and then upstream beyond the jetty. We saw a lot more White Egrets, all sizes from Intermediate, Little and even one Great; a few Rainbow Bee Eaters; a Glossy Ibis (that I only got a quick look at as we passed); a White-Bellied Sea Eagle (sitting proudly on a branch overhanging the river); an Australian Darter with his wings hanging out to dry; a Purple Swamphen; hundreds of Plumed Whistling Ducks that have migrated here to breed and do whistle non-stop; a few Wandering Whistling Ducks, also here to breed; and even a flash of a flying Kingfisher, which I think was a Forest one.
We also saw six female Estuarine (Saltwater) Crocodiles. They are smaller than the males, which can get to 6 metres, but one was still impressive at about 4 metres, especially as she was sitting with her mouth wide open trying to cool off. We could see the throat flap that closes up the throat and stops water getting into the lungs when they catch fish underwater, because Murray
Hanging Out to Dry
A group of Intermediate White Egrets drying off after fishing in the waterlillies. took us right up to her as she lay on the bank behind a tree.
We didn’t see the male that “owns” the territory, though. Murray told us he has a territory of 1 km and has around 30 females in it, which he patrols every evening. In the heat of the day he had gone below the water, where he shuts down 2 of his heart chambers and so can rest for up to 3 hours on the bottom.
In many places along the route we saw grass at the water’s edge but Murray told us it is Buffalo Grass and is actually floating on the water. There were also areas with beautiful big pink flowered Lotus Waterlillies, and their large floating leaves that are all hairy on top so water droplets collect on them and slosh around. They also have large seed pods that develop seeds like peas which are edible. The plants were brought over to Australia by the Maccassans from Indonesia in the mid1800s, but have done no damage and and provide good food and shelter for birds and fish. It doesn’t get out of hand as it washes away
A White-Bellied Sea Eagle
This one was sitting halfway up a tree in Kakadu, beside Yellow Water. These birds are second only to the Wedgetailed Eagle in size. whenever the river floods and then regrows. We also saw stands of extremely tall green stemmed bamboo, which the local people use for didgeridoos and for making throwing spears.
After our very enjoyable cruise, we sat near a pool and had a drink and snack. A little jumping spider decided he liked my bright blue top and kept getting ready to jump on me. I moved and then took a photo of him with my bright blue camera, so he jumped on that instead. Don’t know why he had a blue fixation, but he was cute! We would have loved a swim but we had forgotten to put our swimming gear in the ute. We must start doing that now it’s getting so hot.
We arrived back to the van to discover swarms of Green Ants all over the awning. Some branches had been touching it and they were using them as highways onto the van. We managed to “bounce” or sweep most of them off the awning and I use the last of my surface spray to get the ones that had made it to the van walls. We don’t want an ant
Lotus Lillies
These lovely flowers were introduced into Australia more than a century ago by Maccasans from Indonesia. They provide food and shelter for fish and insects. They produce a large seed pod with seeds rather like nutty peas. The leaves have fine hairs all over them so water is not absorbed but sits on the surface. Look in the bottom right corner for an example. nest in the van! Especially biting green ones!! Needless to say we then retracted the awning.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.04s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0191s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb