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Published: February 28th 2008
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27th February 2008
Today we had to get up early to catch a coach (06-15) for a two day tour of the Kakadu National Park from Darwin.
The National Park is very large the 2nd biggest in the world and covers an area the size of Wales but is also 2 hours drive from Darwin. So we spent a long time sitting on the coach to get here. It had been raining heavily in the night so once again some of the creeks were flooding across the road, which slowed us down, but as we were in a big coach so it didn't stop us.
The first stop was breakfast at the Bark Hut, a very basic roadhouse which served coffee and homemade muffins. Then we went on to see aboriginal rock art at the Nourlangie escarpment. The paintings are under an overhang where the Aboringinal tribes sheltered from the rain in the wet season and the sun in the dry season. It is a special place for them and the paintings are amazing. While they were there they would pass on stories of the dreamtime and lessons in hunting or cooking in their paintings. There used to be many clans
living in Kakadu area of Northern Territory but over the years fighting white settlers and each other has left only two main clans. There is archaeological evidence that Nourlangie has been in continuous use by Aboriginals for 2000 years and still is today. Today the culture is known as the Bininji/Mungguy instead of Aboriginal.
Our guide was also the driver of our coach and talked all the time we were traveling, recounting the ways of the Biniji/Mungguy people or telling us about the flora and fauna. He explained the pictures on the rocks and showed us the plants used by the aboriginal tribes people.
After a good buffet lunch we were taken on a boat ride along the swollen creeks and rivers. The flooded creeks and billabongs are just gorgeous with sparkling water and bright green vegetation everywhere.
Just as we were about to board the boat the heavens opened and there was twenty minutes of torrential rain, which meant that by the time we got on the boat most people were soaked to the skin. The guide could not find any crocodiles because of the rising waters but did show us lots of different birds and plants of the
area. We did see nesting Sea Eagles, Kingfishers, Cormorant type birds and fruit bats which seemed particularly active. The highlight was seeing the little male Jacana trying to look after his sole surviving chick by sheltering it under his wing which made him look as if he had got four legs. The water was still rising however and there was no firm ground left for the chick to walk about on. At this stage the chick was only three days old and could neither fly nor swim so his hopes of survival were fairly slim. Three days ago the male jacana had three chicks he was looking after and now was down to one.
We have now checked into a hotel in the National Park for the night, it is called the Gagudju Crocodile Holiday Inn. The hotel has been built in the shape of a crocodile and it is difficult to find your way round the building owing to the strange shape. You enter the building through the mouth of the crocodile and to get to our room you have to climb the stairs in the front leg. The Dining room is in the belly but cannot be accessed
from the reception area, In the middle of the hotel there is a large open air swimming pool.
For our evening meal in the restaurant Bob had kangaroo and Dinah had the barramundi fish. Both meals were very nice but we were both so tired after the day’s excitements and we start early again tomorrow.
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Neal
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Great photos
More great pics and we are very jealous of the temperatures seeing as it is -18C here in Guelph. We are off to the city now but have chickened out of walking because the wind chill takes the temperature down to -27C! Keep up the blog entries.