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Published: October 25th 2009
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First art cave, Nourlangie Rock
There were quite a few artworks in this cave but they are much more interesting if you catch a ranger talk about them. Day 5 - Jabiru to Katherine
Woke up to another day where the heat and humidity climbed quickly. By the time we packed up all the camping gear, we were ready for another swim but instead we set off in the car for Nourlangie Rock. We got there around 9.00am and started the walk to the art sites. The signage at the carpark said that the walk was 12 klm and because of that, we initially thought we'd only go to the first art site due to the heat and our aversion to doing anything more strenuous in the heat than sitting in airconditioned comfort! But surprisingly, it was a little cooler in the shade of the caves/rock overhang where the artwork was and it certainly didn't feel like we'd walked 12 klms by the end. The steps up to the first art cave were the most taxing part of the whole walk, from there on it was either downhill or on flat ground.
We looked around the first cave by ourselves and decided to head onto the second cave. There were a few people gathered there together with a NT Parks & Wildlife Ranger and we found that
we had arrived just in time for a really interesting talk on Indigenous law and family. The ranger pointed out the different beings depicted in the artwork and explained the story of Namarrgon. Namarrgon, commonly known as the "lightning man," is responsible for the violent electrical storms which occur on the Arnhem plateau. He has a wife called Barrinj and their children are the bright blue and orange Leichhardt grasshoppers. He also talked about some of the other stories that were depicted there and explained that the stories served a dual purpose - the stories themselves often have a moral component (i.e. one story at Ubirr explains that two sisters who stole something got eaten by a crocodile) and they were a way of passing on their traditions and beliefs to their children in the days before it could be written down in a book.
Leaving the second cave, we walked to the Gunwadhewadhe lookout with its great views of the Nourlangie Rock escarpment. The sky was such a clear, vivid blue and the iron in the rock provided a beautiful contrast of colours. Standing there, I began to see the allure of living in this hot, humid place
- it was just beautiful.
On the way back out to the highway there is a turnoff to Anbangbang Lagoon so we thought we'd have a look even though we knew it would be dry. I've seen some beautiful photo's of Nourlangie Rock taken from across the Lagoon but of course it was too dry and the Lagoon wasn't even a puddle.
Back on the road, we drove to Yellow Waters. Almost every website I read when I was researching this trip insisted that you hadn't really seen the top end unless you had done the Yellow Waters cruise. But after a bit more research I began to realise that if you couldn't do the sunrise or sunset cruises, you probably weren't going to see a whole lot more wildlife than you see anywhere else in the top end, i.e. water birds, so I decided against it as I knew we couldn't get there for either sunrise or sunset. I don't regret that decision as we arrived there in the middle of the day and there weren't even any birds around. The only animals we saw were water buffalo about 200 metres away. There is a boardwalk built
out over a swampy area at the edge of the lagoon which we walked out on. It's very pretty and I'm sure the cruise is very nice but I don't feel like we missed out on anything important. Once again though, the heat just sucked the life out of you and we found that it really put a damper on our enjoyment of the scenery when we had to be out in it.
From Yellow Waters out to the Stuart Highway the scenery is actually pretty boring. Dry, mallee scrub boring. There are a couple of side trips that you can do along the way, i.e. to Jim Jim Falls and Gunlom Falls, but we had decided that since it was so dry, there was little chance they were running and the drive out to Jim Jim Falls in particular is an hour or more each way. So we decided to go to little known Umbrawarra Gorge instead. On the way to Umbrawarra, we stopped for lunch at the Mary River Roadhouse. It's just a little petrol and accommodation stop along the way but it looked quite clean and tidy. At least they had grassed campsites which is something
that I was now taking a lot of notice of after our disappointment at the Jabiru campsite.
Umbrawarra Gorge is on the western side of the Stuart Hwy, just south of where the Kakadu Highway joins. Once again, it's about a 20klm detour off the main highway but about half of this is paved. The other half was dirt and was being graded when we were there but there were parts of it that were quite corrugated and rutted - probably best done in a 4WD. The start of the gorge is only about a 5 min walk from the carpark. The water is crystal clear and the gorge, whilst not high, is very pretty. Kevin and Brad went swimming but the girls and I just paddled our feet in the water. I thought it was worth the drive to get there but the girls were not really fussed on it. Again, it was just so hot and we had driven so far that it was hard to find any enthusiasm for anything.
It was now quite late in the afternoon so we decided to press on to Katherine and come back to Edith Falls (which was not
far down the road from Umbrawarra Gorge) the next morning. We stayed in a cabin at the Riverview Caravan Park and decided to eat out at the local Chinese restaurant. Dinner was a bit more expensive than what we are used to but I guess that's the downside of living in the outback. Anyway, we had decided to do our bit for the economy and support local businesses where possible on this trip (and besides, I didn't feel like cooking! 😊
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