Scrambling up rocks & crusing with crocs

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Our Kakadu experience started with a 6.30 pickup from our hostel. We had booked with Kakadu 4WD Safaris and we were greeted by our guide, Pat, a big, hairy aussie bushman, born and bred near Darwin, who has spent most of his life wondering around Kakadu. He and his family lived among aborigines for much of his childhood, and he was adopted by them, given an aboriginal name and learnt and lived their way of life. He oozed love for the place, and was full of fascinating information. He was absolutely awesome, and thanks to him we had an amazing experience. He really brought the place alive.

The first morning was a fairly long drive to the park. We had to enter by the southern road as the local region had been hit by terrible floods, making the usual route into the park impassable. We stopped off just outside the park, as Pat spotted a bit of road with lots of good firewood around. We all piled out of the 4wd and were sent off into the bush to find firewood. As I waded through the long grass and picked up big pieces of dry branches, I tried to block out the number of deadly snakes / scorpians / spiders inhabiting Australian soil. There was none of that 'don't-pick-up-wood-because-spiders-and-snakes-live- there-and-will-eat-you' advice from Pat'!!! I managed to grab quite a lot of wood despite being in grave danger (ahem...) which I thought was quite heroic. It was quite funny to see the guys on the trip gathering firewood - I think it turned into a bit of a testosterone-fuelled challenge, as they seemed reluctant to stop even when we had loads of wood!!! A bit further down the road we screeched to a bit of a halt then reversed back down the road because Pat had seen 'something'. We all got out of the car and waded through the bush, where Pat started shaking a tree pretty violently. We didn't have a clue what he was doing, until a lizard dropped down and he caught it. It turned out to be a frilled dragon, so called because it has a big frilly collar around it's neck - an amazing sight. Pat held this poor dragon, which must have wondered what the hell was going on and had certainly experienced a serious breach of the peace, having been shaken out of its tree so that we could all take photos. I think Pat must have had superpowers to see this lizard sat in a tree 20m from the road as he was driving along - it was absolutely unbelievable!

Soon after, we drove into the park itself. First stop was Moline rock hole. Pat breezily took us past the 'Estuarine Crocodiles May Inhabit this Area' warning sign and told us there were no crocs. I still waited for a few other people to get in first!! We swam in the beautiful clear water, running off a waterfall and in a pretty, shady spot. Having cooled off, we jumped back in the car and headed to our campsite to set up camp. We unloaded the firewood, got our daybags together, unhooked the trailer, and set off for boulder creek. This was a beautiful 3 tier waterfall, with 3 levels of clear, cool pools to swim in. Unfortunately, we weren't quite in splendid isolation, as another tour had the same idea and were inhabiting the most picturesque pool. We had a quick dip in the bottom pool, then scrambled up some rocks to get to the very top pool. I slid across the last lot of rocks up there to get right into a really narrow pool right under the water. It was amazingly powerful - just as well as there were no showers at the camp and we were all in need of a good wash by then! We headed back to camp after our swim and hit the 'grog' - a glass of cool white wine from the 'esky' tasted good after the walk, even if it was out of a metal camping cup! We sat round trying to play didgeridoos round the camp fire. I can now confirm that this is not one of my particular talents, so my secret desire to be a pro 'didge' player will have to be shelved if I'm ever going to stop sponging off mum and dad... We had kangaroo burritos cooked on the camp fire. I'm not sure I'm a massive fan of kangaroos, but we'd worked up an appetite by then, so hunger made it taste better! We were sleeping under the stars, so going to bed only involved chucking our sleeping bags onto the floor and getting in. I was slow getting ready for bed, so I had to sleep on the edge - a bit scary as there isn't as far for the snakes, scorpions, spiders and other baddies to go before the eat you... I did my sleeping bag up really tight so there was only a tiny little hole near my eyes, but a combination of sweating and impaired breathing meant that I had to relent and undo it a bit!! The moon was a bit bright too - a bit like someone shining a torch on you whilst you're trying to sleep.

We awoke to the sound of Pat bellowing 'good morning', confusing when the stars and pitch black sky definitely indicated night time. We all unpeeled ourselves from the ground and stepped out of our very damp sleeping bags. All those romantics who big-up sleeping under the stars never mention the layer of dew that builds up all over you. We had breakfast round the fire, then set off for the day. We were heading north in the park to go for a walk to see some ancient aboriginal rock art. After a lovely walk through the bush, we reached 'Hunter Dreaming', formerly a rock shelter used by hunters. They had painted stories on the rock, depicting their experiences. The oldest painting was a 20,000 walaroo, painted in blood and ochre. After a brief rest there, we did a really tough climb up to the top of a rocky escarpment for a 360 view. This was pretty much free rock-climbing and, at times, it was really difficult to find a ledge or grip. We all made it up in one piece, although someone's sunglasses did a death-defying leap down a crevice and had to be rescued. Pat went on ahead, waving an extremely large bag of 'lollies' (sweets to you and me and anyone not Australian!) in front of us to keep us all going. At the top we devoured them, purely in the interests of rehydration, you understand... What goes up must go down, and we all used our bottoms a lot to slide back down the rocks. On the way down, we stopped at a small falls and pool to cool off. Pat spotted something in the water and the next thing we knew he was wrestling with a lizard which turned out to be a water goanna, a type of water monitor lizard. Seeing him trying to get the lizard under control seemed quite crocodile-dundee-esque! We then headed on to the Nouralangie rock art site, much less rustic with boardwalks and coach parties. Pat gave us some fascinating insights which really brought the paintings alive, though they weren't as old as the ones we'd seen earlier. We then headed back to camp, where one couple on our tour wimped out and asked for a tent. Sass and I were the last ones left standing and it was too scary to be the only ones outside, so we ended up in a tent too...

The next morning we were up to see the stars again, then headed to motorcar falls, a 70m high waterfall. It was very dramatic as there had been so much rain. After about an hour there, we went back to pack up camp and started driving back to Darwin. En route we stopped to see Charlie the Buffalo, who starred in crocodile dundee and now stands stuffed on the bar in a pub! After lunch we continued on up to the Adelaide River, where we were having a crocodile cruise. The water was pretty flooded which made croc-spotting all the more difficult and treacherous. A lot of the crocs were spread across the flood plains, so the chances of seeing any were significanty diminished. There was quite a lot of nervous energy in the boat - no-one seemed that keen on getting eaten. We saw one large, fairly old female croc, but she was too tired to put up much of a fight for the meat Pat was dangling on a stick for her. We only saw one other croc, a mini baby, but he was pretty shy and was living on the edge by floating around. I don't blame him. It would definitely make me jumpy to know that big crocs might eat me!! We also gained a green tree frog that hopped around the boat for the whole cruise, including taking up residence on one girl's face!! All that remained was for us to drive back to Darwin, and this we did, exhausted, but buzzing from a fantastic few days and an amazing insight into the real Australia.

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