Darwin, Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks - 24 to 30 May 2011

---

We have arrived in Darwin which is somewhere we had both heard about in our school days and had always wanted to visit. It is the smallest and most northerly of Australia’s capital cities, and acts as the ‘Top End's’ regional centre. Situated on the Timor Sea, it has a population of only about 125,000, making it the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities. Although hard to believe, Darwin is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney and its also much cheaper to travel to Singapore than to Sydney!
Named after Charles Darwin the city has grown from a pioneer outpost and small port into a modern and multicultural city. The Stuart Highway starts in Darwin and runs all the way through the centre of Australia through Alice Springs and ending at Port Augusta in South Australia. Darwin is built on a low bluff overlooking the harbour and as we flew into the city the skyline buildings stood out against the vast surrounding waterways. The region, like the rest of the Top End, has a tropical climate, with a wet and a dry season and the weather was indeed very tropical as we embarked from the aircraft. It receives heavy rainfall during the ‘wet’, and becomes quite isolated and is well-known for its spectacular lightning but we were lucky and did not get any diverse weather during our visit. We found the city to be extremely modern, having been almost entirely rebuilt twice, once due to the Japanese air raids during WWII and again after being devastated by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, but with all that behind them the city seems to be growing again quite rapidly and we noticed huge areas being developed.
We took a courtesy bus to the Gateway Airport Hotel and had dinner in their bistro. We found the food to be particularly good and reasonably priced compared to other areas around Australia. We had an early night as we had to be up early to start our tour and we were really looking forward to be back on the road again. In the morning we sat in reception waiting for our transport. After a while we got concerned and Paul called the tour operator who said that they had a mix up with hotels for some others guest and were running late………... Just over an hour later our bus arrived with a group of other travellers. This trip was going to be very different to the last one as there were 12 fellow tourist already on the bus, whereas on our last tour there was only one other couple!! Our guide, called Guy was actually French, complete with a very strong accent which was quite difficult to understand at times but he was a very informative guide, particularly on local aborigine history!!

We headed out of Darwin towards the Kakadu National Park where many of the unsealed roads were in the process of being upgraded to sealed ones. We are still unsure why they have so many unsealed roads throughout Australia, it does make it difficult if you do not have 4WD and some of the most amazing places are only located on unsealed roads, making them inaccessible to us tourist unless you hire expensive 4WD vehicles or join guided tours! We continued our journey and crossed the fast flowing Adelaide River and Guy told us that for every billabong in the area there was a resident crocodile……………. Six weeks ago the whole area was underwater during the ‘Wet’ and was only just accessible to travellers with many of the roads still being repaired. As we travelled along the vegetation was very lush and the land was covered in tall ‘spear grass’ which as its name suggests was best avoided. The area has no ‘big’ kangaroos but plenty of the much smaller wallabies as kangaroos do not like water - and there was plenty of this everywhere. We travelled through several large cattle stations, many of these lost about 200 cattle a year to the resident crocodiles – in fact ‘crocs’ made the news quite frequently in the Northern Territory! We continued on crossing the Mary River before arriving at Bark Hut for a quick break where we got to chat to our fellow companions for the next three nights. Amongst them were an English couple who lived in Melbourne with their fathers who were visiting them from England. Adrianna and David from Victoria, Carmel and Malcolm from Sydney, who were actually holidaying in the Cook Islands at the same time as us so we hope to catch up with them there, another couple from Sydney, Phil who lived in Sydney but who originally came from Bath and had a son who lived in Berlin (small world). Finally a lady from Brisbane whose husband was in Africa competing in a marathon and she was travelling on her own. We continued on and travelled through Annabarroo which Guy said had experienced 3 metres of rain this year instead of the average 1.8 metres - a lot more rain that normal. We were still experiencing so much unusual weather patterns on our travels and everyone we spoke to said that it was different to the normal pattern – we did choose an odd year for our travels!!

Kakadu National Park is different to other Parks in Australia as it is owned by Aborigine people and leased out on a 99 year lease to the government. Aborigine people have been in the Kakadu area continuously for around 60,000 years. The area has an abundance of mineral deposits and in particular large deposits of uranium. Mining is big business and mines are also leased from the Aborigine owners with those running the mines having at least 15% of their workforce of Aborigine origin. When these leases end the countryside must be returned to its natural state with any signs of mining and occupation removed.

There are about twenty Aborigine clans in the Kakadu but only about five of these actually work with the National Parks. Many prefer to maintain their independence and there are many restrictions to where you can travel within the park and indeed within the area. There are also severe fishing restrictions for anyone coming into the area that limit the catch to three fish per person but this does not apply to the indigenous peoples.

As mentioned earlier Guy was extremely knowledgeable about the local Aborigine people and gave us an insight into many things we had not known before. "The Dreaming" is the belief of many Aboriginal groups that Aboriginal people have been in Australia since the beginning. During this significant period the ancestral spirits came up out of the earth and down from the sky to ‘walk on the land’ were they created and shaped its land formations, rivers, mountains, forests and deserts. These were created while the ancestors travelled, hunted and fought. They also created all the people, animals and vegetation that were to be apart of the land and laid down the patterns their lives were to follow. It was the spirit ancestors who gave Aboriginal people the laws, customs and codes of conduct, and who are the source of the songs, dances, designs, languages, and rituals that are the basis of Aboriginal religious expression. These ancestors were spirits who appeared in a variety of forms. When their work was completed the ancestral spirits went back into the earth, the sky and into the animals, land formation, and rivers. The ancestors-beings are ‘alive’ in the spirit of Australian Aboriginals today.

We continued on our journey and noticed an abundance of billabongs right alongside the road with a large number of white egrets as well as other wading birds before crossing the West Alligator River. The Alligator Rivers is the name of a region in the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory containing three rivers the East, West and South Alligator River. They were explored by Lieutenant Phillip Parker King in 1820 who named them in the mistaken belief that the crocodiles in the estuaries were alligators (there are no alligators in Australia!) We had not seen any crocodiles yet but as well as these, cattle, wild horses, donkeys and pigs roamed freely and whilst we travelled along a group of six large black pigs raced across the track in front of us and charged into the bush on the other side.
The area is also rich in Australian Aboriginal art with about 1500 sites and after lunch we stopped and walked to Ubirr one of the most important Rock Art areas. Rock Art is extremely important to the Aboriginal owners of Kakadu as well as an important historic and scientific record of human occupation of the region. We saw a range of different art styles and Guy explained how new paintings were often superimposed over older ones. We had always assumed that they were all painted in the same period but some of them were much more modern. It was easy to visualise a group of people once camping here under Ubirr’s cool rock shelters, painting on the rock walls and ceilings and at the same time exploiting the rich resources nearby in the East Alligator River and the Nadab floodplain. The original owners and their descendants who lived in these caves have all died out and Ubirr is now looked after by neighbouring clans. Most of the paintings in the main gallery rock are from the freshwater period, within the last 1500 years. They show the abundance of food available in the area surrounding Ubirr including fish, waterfowl, mussels, wallabies, goannas, echidnas and yams. There were also some examples of contact art; for example a ‘white fella’ shown wearing a shirt, boots and with his hands in his trouser pockets, which was probably an early buffalo hunter painted in 1880s. Close to the main gallery is a painting of a thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), believed to have become extinct on the Australian mainland 2000 to 3000 year ago. Whilst we were in Tasmania recently we had seen some black and while footage of the last Tasmania Tiger in the world as mentioned in our Tasmanian blog. We walked around the caves for a while and up to a lookout overlooking the Nadab Floodplains with 360 degree spectacular views stretching for miles – a truly lovely scene.
In the afternoon we boarded a small open boat on to the East Alligator River which forms a boundary between Kakadu and Arnhem Land to go on our first crocodile spotting cruise. Our Aborigine guide explained aspects of local culture whilst we travelled slowly up the river looking for crocodiles and birds. Aboriginal people are familiar with the crocodile on their land and large crocodiles are respected, while smaller crocodiles are sometimes eaten with crocodile eggs collected for food. Young people are not allowed to eat crocodile intestines, these are reserved for the elderly, who fill them with crocodile fat and roast them! We came to a weir and rock barrier which formed a crossing from one side of the river to the other when the river was low but it was still quite dangerous to cross on foot. Huge numbers of crocodiles stalked this area and some local people had lost their lives to them by crossing when the river was high. However during our river cruise we only did see one crocodile which was asleep under a tree and not at all bothered by us tourist! We were lucky to see though a good variety of birds including a large osprey tearing a fish it had just caught on a tree stump overlooking the river. As we travelled along our aborigine guide said that he would allow us to disembark on the shores for a short time in Arnhem Land. Arnhem Land is one of the last pristine areas in the world, comprising 90,000 sq kms of unspoiled wilderness located in the middle of Australia’s Northern Coast bordered by Kakadu National Park. Its small population is predominantly aboriginal people, whose traditional culture remains largely intact. Access to Arnhem Land is restricted and only selected tour operators who have earned the trust of traditional landowners may bring visitors to their lands so we were really fortunate to be able to set foot in this area. Whilst we wandered along the shoreline and creeks the local Aborigines gave us a demonstration of spear throwing as well as explained the uses of the variety of trees and herbs growing in the area. We then re-boarded our boat for the return journey to pick up our transport. As we cruised back along the river our guide showed us some photographs on his ‘mobile phone’ of some Rock Art that he had painted and he was indeed a very talented young man (ancient and modern comes to mind). We had spent a very different day and will have a unique memory of our glimpse into the lives and culture of the local indigenous people in this small part of Arnhem Land. We said goodbye to our Aborigine guides and Guy was waiting for us at the riverside to transport us to our first night stop at Kakadu Campsite near the small town of Jabiru. Our accommodation for the night was ‘permanent’ tents which meant we did not have to erect them ourselves - which was great. The tents were quite large and had two full camp beds a small table and sleeping bags – quite different to our Kimberley experience much more luxury. We had also been given a free pillow as well and a towel so more luxury. We must admit it was nice not to have to erect the tents ourselves and have a little more comfort although that said it was sometimes good fun seeing who could get their tent up first! However on this tour we were free to enjoy the evening and not help with the ‘chores’. We decided to look at the swimming pool, not to swim as it was getting dark and cold but to have a few drinks with our fellow travellers at the pool bar! We later returned to our camping area where our guide, Guy had cooked us dinner before we returned to the swimming pool for a nightcap or two…………..
After breakfast we continued on stopping at several more interesting Rock Art sites before visiting the Warradjan Aborigine Culture Centre which had excellent displays on local customs and we spent sometime wandering around. We then left the Kakadu National Park behind us and travelled into Nitmiluk National Park although this used to be called Lower Kakadu. The area was renamed Nitmiluk meaning ‘cicada place’ in 1989 when traditional owners, the Jawoyn Aboriginal people, gained title to the land. We eventually arrived at Leliyn (Edith Falls) a lovely paperbark and pandanus fringed natural pool at the base of the falls. Guy told us that it had only opened today after the ‘wet’ so we were feeling very lucky and most of us jumped straight in for a swim in the refreshing waters. It was not until we came out that we noticed the crocodile management signs which are used in most parks in this area. The brown and white signs are used near the escarpment where park rangers check some rock pools for estuarine crocodiles (salties) at the end of each wet season. These natural pools and lakes are closed until rangers have completed surveys and are confident that there are no signs of salties present. Baits and traps are used, as well as the Rangers actually going out at night with torch lights looking for crocodile ‘eyes’ shining in their lights – no kidding. However crocodiles can move into these areas undetected at any stage and therefore you enter the water at your own risk at any time…………... Not sure whether we would have been so keen to jump in had we realised that we were the first people to ‘test the waters,’ the pool only just opening that day!!!!! We were however quite jumpy as we swam to the centre of the pool as you think ‘croc’ all the time in NT. The water however was so refreshing but after a while I thought I felt something nibbling my leg, so we did not stay in too long – afterwards our guide said it was probably only a ‘cleaner fish’. They apparently frequent these waters and were probably quite happy to have someone to clean with us being the first ‘humans’ of the ‘season’.……..Guy later told us that recent tagging of crocodiles was throwing up much more information on these creatures and it was just coming to light that ‘salties’ actually moved between rivers and creeks far more than had been thought in the past…………….We did live to tell the tale though!!!!
We continued on our journey and passed over the Ghan Railway Line where the trains travel all the way from Adelaide in South Australia to Darwin in Northern Territory, stopping in the township of Katherine before their final destination of Darwin. Katherine was devastated in the 2006 floods and the surrounding area was 3.8 meters underwater. They even caught a huge crocodile wandering down the main highway during this time and they had lots of photographs showing its capture in one of the roadhouses we stopped at. Katherine is the last main town before you reach Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, a huge distance away (not many towns for shopping). Explorer, John McDouall Stuart passed through the region in 1862 and named the river 'Katherine' after the daughter of his sponsor, James Chambers, although her name was actually spelt with a 'C'. As with many settlements in the Territory, the town developed with the arrival of the Overland Telegraph Line and the establishment of the Telegraph Station in 1872. The town moved twice during this early development, finally establishing at its current site with the completion of the railway bridge in 1926. Katherine's early history is depicted at a number of sites around the region. The Katherine Museum, housed in the original aerodrome, features the De Havilland Gypsy Moth aircraft flown by the first 'flying doctor', Dr Clyde Fenton. O'Keefe House was built from bush materials by officers in WWII as a recreation hut and was later owned by John and Olive O'Keefe. Olive flew with Dr Clyde Fenton in the 1930s.
We continued a short distance to our next overnight stop at Springvale Homestead which had extremely interesting history. In 1879, after good reports from Stuart and other explorers, Alfred Giles and Alfred Woods brought stock to Katherine and built a homestead they called 'Spring Vale', with a view to establishing a pastoral empire. Today, Springvale Homestead is the oldest homestead in the Northern Territory and is open to the public for visits as well as camping. Again our tents were permanents and we were free to explore the area before dinner and wandered around the Station’s outbuildings and farmlands. A creek flowed through the Station and we noticed a couple of freshwater crocodiles on the edge of the creek - quite oblivious to us though. The creek also had a lovely display of bright pink water lilies as well as many different water birds wading on the surface. Wallabies were also hopping around the campsite and surrounding area and we watched these bounding around as we settled down to dinner under the stars. Paul has always had a fascination for stargazing and has had many opportunities during our travels to view them as the skies were so clear with no light pollution. It was a really cold night and we both woke up several times and put on a few more layers to try and get warm – we thought Oz was supposed to be warm!! Springvale Station was in a truly lovely setting and it was a shame that we only had one night here as we had to be up early and off first thing in the morning.
Next morning we travelled back through Katherine and Guy filled the bus with diesel and bought a paper which had the headlines (Darwin woman suffers from Hypothermia) - we thought it was cold overnight. Apparently it was ‘only’ 10 degrees last night and this lady decided to walk to her local shop without any shoes on – she did survive! We continued on to Katherine Gorge our next stop. The Katherine River flows through 13 separate gorges that carve their way through the Arnhem Land Plateau. These gorges were carved out of the rock by torrential summer rains over millennia. You can usually canoe or cruise between sheer cliffs through the main gorges and view aboriginal rock painting on the rock faces as well as view waterfalls and rock pools along the tracks. We however were unable to canoe as there was still a risk of crocodiles and therefore took a river cruise. We travelled up several of the gorges having to disembark and take a short walk along the river edge or over stepping stones between gorges and then board another boat. We saw several rock art paintings on the edge of the gorge some painted a long way above the river and we thoroughly enjoyed our time cruising through these tight waterways. Guy set out a picnic lunch in the bush and we spotted several trees covered in Fruit Bats (Flying Foxes) which were quite smelly and the noise level was amazing - we have never seen so many fruit bats all on one tree. We continued back to Katherine where Guy parked the bus and we were free to wander around the town but most of us ended up in a delightful coffee shop, sampling some really good ‘proper’ coffee which made a change from the ‘instant’ on the trip.
We continued on to Pine Creek which was established in the 1800s when gold was discovered by workers on the Overland Telegraph Line and is the only original mining town of the gold rush era in Northern Australia. Pine Creek, 90 kilometres north of Katherine continued to operate as a gold mining town until 1995 and is famed for its gold mining and railway heritage. Pine Creek had many heritage buildings and mining sites still standing which are exhibited around the tiny town at sites like the Pine Creek National Trust Museum and the Railway Station Museum. The latter includes an 1877 steam locomotive - thought to be the oldest restored locomotive in Australia.
We called in at the Lazy Lizard Bar which is a unique outback tavern. It was constructed from termite mound-mud brick, with local ironwood and featured many artefacts left over from the gold rush days. We had a drink in the bar before continuing on to the Grove Historic Hotel another outback pub where pieces of territory memorabilia literally filled the bar as well as its grounds and it looked like a giant car boot market in the middle of the bush. Several rooms as well as all the walls, floors, ceilings and even the doors were littered with dusty old antiques, many associated with the mining history of the region. Hundreds of different collectibles including old photographs and equipment from eras now past – a true time warp in the outback. One table was dedicated to Elvis Presley and someone must have been a very devoted fan at sometime. The Grove Hill pub was built in 1930 by Bill and Mary Lucy, Bill was prospecting for gold in the area at the time. Many locals used to come to the pub for a chat and a ‘coldie’ in the beer garden, whilst Mary and her daughter provided meals. The pub was also a post office where Mary also sent off the telegrams. Later Stan and Mary Hacusler took over the pub and continued to run it as a hotel and bar and the ‘collectibles’ collection must have continued to grow!!. Apparently it was an extremely popular outback hotel in its day with free barbeques and live music once a week. People would travel long distances and meet up with the ‘colourful regulars’ at the renowned hotel bar. Whilst we were there we met some of these delightful locals as well as Mary who was still serving behind the bar well into her 70s.
We continued a short distance to Mount Bundy Station where we stopped for the night. This Station was a working cattle property situated on the banks of the Adelaide River overlooking the picturesque Coomalie region. The station reared mainly Buffalo and the huge Brahman cattle. Wallabies and other native wildlife joined the animals in their huge enclosures and it was quite fascinating watching the little wallabies bounding around between these huge Buffalo and Cattle, all quite happy in each others company. For dinner we did not try the buffalo but Guy had put crocodile and kangaroo on the menu as well as some huge steaks. I was not keen on some of these Australian meats but we had a pleasant evening with our fellow travellers chatting late into the night. Several of us wandered over to the paddock to photograph the buffalo but one of them did not seem to like us very much and charged straight at us at great speed. Luckily though there was a wire fence which stopped him, although apparently he had broken through this before! As at most of these outback stations with camping facilities it had very basic facilities; shared male and female loos with a small cold water sink outside and a couple of antiquated showers which had definitely seen better days. We retired to bed and had another cold night, waking several times to extremely strange noises outside the tent. There was also no moon so an extremely dark night and although Paul got up to find the loos in the night I did not dare as I would never find my way back to the tent even with our head torch. In the early hours of the morning I had to make the journey and got completely lost, luckily Guy was up already preparing breakfast and he showed me the way with his heavy duty torch and returned me safely back to our tent or I could still be wandering around the outback now! Later when I went back to the bathroom to wash and clean my teeth (was not going to risk a shower), I put my hands under the tap only to have a little green frog land in the palm of my hands - apparently I woke everyone that morning!!! Later we took some photographs of the sun rising over the paddock and with the buffalo grazing and the wallabies prancing behind them it was a truly memorable picture. On the telegraph wires were perched some colourful Azure Kingfishers, what a truly restful setting and again it would have been great to stay longer but they certainly could do with upgrading their facilities.
We travelled on and Guy stopped for his usual morning paper with today the headline stating ‘Army moved the Croc’ as mentioned earlier crocodiles are always in the news and often make the headlines in this area. We stopped in the township of Bachelor before entering Litchfield National Park, a picturesque park with numerous waterfalls which cascade from a sandstone plateau called the Tabletop Range. The monsoon rainforest contains intriguing termite mounds as well as many historical sites. We stopped at the Magnetic Termite Mounds which rise as much as three metres or more in height and are shaped like slabs rising out of the ground with their flat sides facing east and west. The thin ends are thus on a north-south axis, giving rise to the term ‘magnetic’. Rather than being influenced by magnetic forces, the mounds are actually so well crafted that their flat, broad sides, and hence the mounds themselves, do not catch too much heat from the sun during the hottest part of the day. They were quite different from other termite mounds we had seen but again very much like tombstones but this time scattered across a swamp. We continued on to Florence Falls which had a viewing platform at the top of the falls and then we walked down the 160 stepped staircase to the cool waters of the swimming hole below. It was quite difficult to get into the water across the rocks so we decided against having a swim this time. We then walked on through the rainforest following the stream before returning to the car park. A short distance away we stopped at Buley Rockhole which featured a series of waterfalls and rock pools cascdading through the rainforest. This definitely was a really good place to get into the water and we spent ages in these natural pools and would have stayed there all day but Guy came to collect us before too long as it was time to move on…Our next falls was the Tolmer Falls one of the most spectacular, which cascaded over two high escarpments into a distant, deep, plunge pool way below. The bottom of the falls is home to several colonies of rare Ghost Bats and Orange Horseshoe Bats but we only viewed from above so did not get to see these. We had lunch before traveling to our last destination of the tour, Wangi Falls which is one of Litchfield’s most popular falls and truly stunning with two powerful waterfalls falling into a huge pool below. We took some photographs but the pool itself was closed for swimming. We then decided to undertake the 1.6km loop walk with our fellow traveller Phil. The walk circled up and over the top of the pools which was quite steep in places but at the top you could see the river dividing into two distinct channels which then fell over the edge to form the two separate waterfalls below. The views out over the rainforest were superb and it was a lovely walk to end our tour of the area. Back at the waterfall the others were all waiting for us as it was time to return to Darwin and we were the last to get back as the others had not undertaken this lovely walk. We were dropped off at our hotel first so we said goodbye to Guy and our fellow travellers. We shall miss Carmel and Malcolm but hope to meet up with them in the Cook Islands in July at the end of our travels. The next day we had a free day and decided just to ‘chill’ by the swimming pool which was quite a change from the freshwater natural pools we had jumped into over the last few days. We were lucky to have the whole swimming pool to ourselves all day as the hotel was not full. Later we had a meal in the bistro before retiring to bed to be up early for our flight to Cairns and at last to get into the lush State of Queensland which we had first tried to do back in January so long ago– see you all there.

---