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Published: September 2nd 2016
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Signal has been very patchy lately so I am a bit behind with the blog, sorry. So this is a bit long, sorry again.
So we left Darwin on Monday but immediately noticed that we had a flat tyre when leaving the hotel. So a 2 hour delay but we found a tyre dealer with the Cooper tyre only 8 km away and Brian re-inflated the flat with the compressor. We got that sorted ($450 later ) and arrived in Kakadu still early enough to get the camping gear up in the light. We were camping at Merl right up in the north of Kakadu and while there did a bit of a bushwalk and a ranger led tour of the rock art at Ubirr. Although our ranger was Ballander (what the indigenous call whitefellers up here) she was very knowledgeable about the art and the indigenous clans in the area having lived and worked with them for 17 years and has been adopted.
She gave a talk of over an hour about kinship and stressed that her knowledge and understanding is that of a kindergarten child- this is SUCH a complex topic and affects absolutely all aspects of life and
society within these communities. I will not attempt to blog what we learnt but let's just say that the topic of skin names and relationship is like a 4 level conditional algorithm. And the arrival of the Europeans and our law is often in conflict with their laws and social behaviour to show respect and politeness.
The art covered many thousands of years and styles but much of the newer stuff (5000 years or less) was x-Ray paintings. In this area food and water are abundant so the people had much more time to paint, tell stories, sing and dance.
This part of Kakadu borders Arnhem land which has been largely left alone by Whitefellers and is under aboriginal land title. The indigenous had to recover Kakadu and gain the land title through the courts but lease it as a national park. There are many areas which require a permit to visit and the people continue to live in their own communities and sustain their culture and languages.
We did a cultural cruise on the east alligator river as guests of the Guluyambi. We saw countless crocodiles and learnt that the Alligator mistake was made by ???? and the area
had been visited in the 1800s by Dutch traders and the people could not pronounce "Hollander" and that is why Whitefellers are known as Ballanders.
It was great to spend time with people who are healthy, happy and very pleased to share their knowledge and uses of plants and bushtucker and are proud of their land.
Kakadu was also desperately hot and humid with night temperature not dipping much below 30 and many and varied ferocious insects which is hard to deal with when you only have swags and a shelter. We were being eaten alive by a selection of bugs that found the repellent not at all repelling.
After 2 sleepless nights we moved down to Maguk and did a lovely walk to the beautiful plunge pool and waterfall where I swam and then decided that we should move on and head south.
So the most famous Jim Jim, Twin and Gunlom falls we didn't visit since the roads would be too hard and we have something to come back for one day.
So we had 1 quick overnight back at Nitmiluk and then drove on to Daly Waters via the springs at Bitter Creek.
The springs were beautiful
and warm water flowing gently. Brian saw a turtle from the banks but I was in the water AGAIN and an gingerly attempting breast stroke kick with my knee which feels weird.
Daly Waters pub is a legendary outback pub and has been serving grog since 1930. We had booked a room for the night and had dinner there and rather a lot of drinks. The pub is stuffed with the oddest things including bras, knickers, shirts, money, messages and heaven knows what. We had the beef and Barra and enjoyed dinner in the courtyard with live music. We even danced, that's how much booze we had!
We got back to our room to find a small green and red frog on the wall. He was trying to climb to the ceiling and a fair amount of squawking squealing and laughing went on as we tried to catch it.
Eventually Brian got him into a box and threw him out.
We then found another one in the toilet that wedged itself under the rim and refused to come out despite gentle encouragement with a stick- it made an awful noise. In the end I had to test my knee
with the long range hover then we sealed the toilet for the night with gaffer tape. In the morning when I removed the tape there were 2 frogs in the toilet!
So we set off again and are now at the Kunjarra, (The Pebbles). On the way here we happened to arrive at an accident moments after it has happened and assisted 4 young Aussies out of a rolled car due to burst tyre.
Thankfully no one was seriously hurt but getting their stuff out of the wreck and waiting with them for help was required, along with some of the contents of our first aid kit. They were in the hands of police, paramedics and recovery when we left them.
The weather here is several degrees cooler and much more comfortable. We also saw rain today - the first since July 23rd. Didn't mind it makes the land smell amazing. From here we are off to Lawn Hill hopefully.
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