Kakadu

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Thrifty Car Hire
Marg had organised our car hire through Thrifty, when she discovered a ‘good rate’ could be got, by mentioning her employer. On collecting the small size car we found we had a 2007 Mitsubishi Colt, 1.5L, 2-door convertible, in fluorescent bronze - it even had Marg’s initials. We hadn’t immediately realised it was a convertible until we found an instruction leaflet on how to activate the ‘conversion’. I immediately felt compelled to get to some busy people spot & flick the switch. It did feel pretty bloody special driving around with it’s top down - quite decadent really. When Marg collected me from Jabiru airstrip after my Ranger Mine tour, I caught sight of her driving past the café I was at &, by golly, she looked even hotter than usual, like some starlet strutting her stuff. The car, with its distinctive colouring stuck out like dog’s legs. It was a great little car, gave us no problems at all; I almost cried when it was time to return it.
We had this car for the 7 days from Wed 01/Jul/09 till Wed 08/Jul/09. Cost us $38/day with 100kms included & extra kms at 25c/km. Plus $5/day insurance to reduce our excess. All up we did 1316kms & spent $131 on petrol.

Territory Wildlife Park (TWP)
TWP ($20 entry/person) is about 45min south of Darwin. This open-air wildlife park is set in natural bushland that includes wetlands, monsoon forest, a nocturnal house, a Top End river system as an aquarium & a walk through aviary. Pretty impressive place, quite spread out - in fact, a shuttle bus runs loops of the park to help the non-walkers get around.
The aviary displays were great - a walking path through a series of smaller enclosures featuring birds in virtually real habitats. The very first of these gave us quite a start - on entry, a clap of thunder, a bolt of lightning & a torrential downpour beset the monsoon environment within. Several more of these smaller enclosures have you gradually increasing your height off the ground before you enter a large aviary at tree canopy level & continue the now spirally descending pathway to check out the large variety of birds sharing this space.
The aquarium was tremendous too - a series of tanks featuring many aspects of a top end river system & the life it supports. The path you take through this building wends its way down so you can see what sort of things happen at various levels of the river until you walk through a tunnel at the bottom of the ‘river’ with fish & fresh water rays overhead & either side of you.
The Nocturnal House was really good too, with its clever displays in subdued lighting, you engage in some ‘spot the creature’ at most enclosures as you get a good look at many night animals you’d have no hope of seeing in their natural habitats.

Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise
Several companies offer this type of cruise, but a friend of Marg’s had recommended this particular one. So on Thu 02/Jul/09, en route to Kakadu, we detoured off the Arnhem Highway, just before you cross the Adelaide River (~65km from Darwin). This cruise takes 1¼hr, costs $35 each, and is on the Adelaide River. This company has run these cruises for years so they, and the crocs I suspect, have their routine all worked out. The boat moves off with all of us scanning the river banks for crocs we might be able to lure over. Pretty soon we get spotted by a croc who knows there’s some food in it for him, so over he comes. One of the cruise personnel attaches a chunk of meat to a rope dangling from a long stick, a bit like an over-sized fishing line, and lets the meat slap the water surface a couple of times. The croc makes a move for it but the meat is lifted out of reach but still in sight; another leaping attempt is made that sees half the length of the croc leave the water. The third leap from the croc may even be higher then before, on the fourth jump the croc is allowed to take the meal. We saw a dozen or more crocodiles on this cruise, some taking little interest in us, others making a bee-line to the boat. One croc jumped so high that we actually saw his hind legs above the water!
Crocodiles are the world’s largest living reptiles. They are also one of the most ancient, having existed unchanged for nearly two hundred million years. There are more than 20 types of crocodiles in the world - two of which occur in Australia, the freshwater and the estuarine or saltwater crocodile. The freshwater crocodiles live in freshwater rivers, creeks and plunge pools and are usually shy but can become aggressive if disturbed. Saltwater crocodiles live in freshwater and estuarine areas, such as floodplains, billabongs, rivers and coastal waters and are aggressive.
Croc numbers declined to near extinction up till ~1960, as they were hunted for their skins, but a ban on their hunting from ~1970 has seen the croc population recover dramatically. The larger male crocodiles will be seen more frequently now, the females rarely growing much more than 3m in length, while males will grow longer (maybe up to 5m) and broader as well.

Kakadu National Park (KNP)
Kakadu has long had some sort of mystique associated with it for me, so the journey into Kakadu National Park was an exciting one, with much anticipation of the natural wonders we would see. Kakadu is World Heritage listed for both its cultural and ecological significance. The park is about 20,000km2 & its entry, from Darwin, is just 120km on sealed roads. Jabiru, the commercial centre of the park, and where we would be based, is another 120km east, getting toward the park’s NS border with Arnhem Land. The name ‘Kakadu’ is an anglicised form of the word ‘Gagudju’ the aboriginal language used in the northern parts of the area since the beginning of the 20th Century.
Evidence of stone tools, shelters & ochre paintings indicate that Aboriginal people have lived in this area for over 50,000 years with about 5000 cultural sites having been identified. Kakadu is home to 68 mammals, more than 120 reptiles, 26 frogs, over 300 tidal and freshwater fish species, more than 2000 plants and over 10000 species of insect. It provides habitat for more than 290 bird species. Its internationally important wetlands are a major staging point for migratory birds. Some of these species are threatened or endangered. Many are found nowhere else in the world and there are still others yet to be discovered.
Trying to describe Kakadu, and do it justice, is quite a challenge. It has such a diverse set of landscapes and each with its own range of plants and animals. These landscapes and habitats are never static and are dominated by the severe swing from wet to dry seasons. There is almost no rain for up to 8 months of the year. This contrasts with the deluges of the wet months - the average yearly rainfall is 1485mm. And it’s always hot, or getting hotter, or, in the wet months, humid, or more humid. Days below 30oC are rare and, during the dry months, minimum temperatures rarely fall below 18oC.
Kakadu’s Binij/Mungguy people recognise six different seasons. Yegge: Cool weather time, May to June. Banggerreng: Harvest time, April. Gudjewg: Monsoon, December to March. Wurrgeng: Early dry season, June to August. Gurrung; Hot dry season, August to October. Gunumeleng: Pre-monsoon, October to December.
Travelling the major roads in and around Kakadu you see the first of the several main landforms - the woodlands, tidal flats & coast, floodplains & billabongs, denser forests. But these roads are constructed on higher, more stable grounds, less prone to weather interference, and as such will avoid many of the more spectacular or dramatic landscapes. Further travel, mostly off the bigger roads, will have you seeing more of the monsoon forests, southern hills & ridges and the stone country.
The Creation Era legends and day-to-day living are presented at Ubirr and Nourlangie. Rock art galleries reveal mouth-sprayed hand stencils, hunters carrying spears, fish, birds and mammals are presented in an x-ray style, revealing internal organs and bone structures.

On Sun 05/Jul/09 Marg & I took drove to Cooinda with no real firm plans in mind other than undertaking some of the walks in the area. We visited the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre, which was very informative about the Aboriginal culture in Kakadu. We walked some of the Yellow Water Wetlands boardwalk but most of it seemed closed with the waters still a bit too high. We stopped to have our picnic style lunch in the grounds of the Gagudju Lodge and decided then and there we’d take the soon to depart, Yellow Waters Cruise. This was a 1½ hour cruise, costing $55 each, on the South Alligator River and its associated floodplain in this region. The local Aboriginal name for Yellow Water is Ngurrungurrudjba, and relates to the water colour with all the leached leaf tannins and the like. It was a great chance to get a closer look at the varied birdlife of these wetlands and we weren’t disappointed. There were quite a few crocs to be found, mostly sunning themselves on the riverbanks, but the occasional one pretending to be a log of wood in the water. A lazy lot compared to our last cruise where the crocs came a runnin’.
There were lots of birds to be seen with brolga, jabiru, sea eagle, whistling kite, azure kingfisher, whistling duck, comb-crested jacana, rainbow bee-eater and magpie geese all presenting themselves. David, our driver and guide, spoke of the height of the waters in the wet and that most times you can tell the course of the river by the tops of the trees poking out of the water; but, that a couple of year back that didn’t even work as no tree tops were evident! As he says this you look around and see how flat the surroundings are and you start to realise the vast quantities of water that are involved in these wets. I’d really like to see Kakadu at its wettest. David tells us that it won’t rain for another five months so these waters will continue to recede and the birds will congregate and concentrate around the few low-lying billabongs. I’d really like to see Kakadu at its driest.
Aboriginal people have burned country for tens of thousands of years and the Balanda (non-Aboriginal people) now use these same patch burning methods in the cooler months to remove the excess plant growth, to prevent wildfires, to repair country and to promote the recovery of biodiversity. Some culling of feral animals, introduced and abandoned by settlers, takes place from time to time with shooting of buffalo, horses, donkeys from airplanes.

Jabiru
We were pretty happy with our accommodation at Jabiru. We had followed a friend’s suggestion (thanks Chas) & taken a Bush Bungalow at Lakeview Park. These ‘Love Shacks’ ($95/night) are in a safari style, with the floor 1m off the ground, with hard walls up a further 1.5m & then a tent style high ceiling with fan. The walls were of a finely perforated corrugated metal that behaved in the same way as a 2-way mirror - you could see out pretty clearly but not be seen when inside. At night, however, the story was different when you had the interior light on, you could put on a bit of a show to any interested neighbours. (In fact, we got an anonymous note of thanks for one particular performance!) These shacks had plenty of close, lush tropical plantings to screen off the neighbours and provide the privacy & bush-feel that worked so well. The room had a double bed, 2 bunk singles, cold water to a sink, small fridge & coffee making facilities; toilet/bathroom were separate but close & exclusively ours. These shacks, toilets, & shared bbq were serviced daily & were kept immaculately.
Jabiru itself was a small place, 13km2 and a population of about 2000 but spread out considerably, perhaps in keeping with the Kakadu enormity or to facilitate future growth. There was a central shopping area with supermarket, bank, library, health clinic, chemist, newsagent/post office & café. There were three major accommodation facilities - Kakadu Lodge, the Crocodile Hotel & our Lakeview Park. Right opposite Lakeview Park was a set of temporary housings, in the form of container type homes for the Ranger Uranium Mine folk. Jabiru also had a school, church, Police station, large lake, a defined Aboriginal area (Manaburduma), Sports & Social Club, swimming pool & golf club.
We went to the nearby Sports & Social Club one night for dinner and marvelled at the size & selection of beers available, but Marg could get no advice from behind the busy bar when she asked about some of their wine. The main room here had an oversized TV screen with sport channel screenings & this got us back there the next day to watch the AFL Saints v Cats (both undefeated up till this Rd.14) along with a large & interesting crowd with the same idea. The Jabiru swimming pool was a humdinger, an Olympic size set in spacious grassed grounds, but seemed to be woefully underused. Marg was the only one in the pool swimming her laps on more than one of our visits.

The Bread Nazi
One great asset to Jabiru is the bakery that is located not too far from Lakeview Park. It opens early, so you can whip down there and get supplies for breakfast &/or your lunchtime repast. This was in fact a routine we soon got going and were most impressed with the quality of the products here. An off-putting feature of the place was the owner/operator there who had a long, narrow, European face that did manage many smiles. He exuded a gruff, or even frightening, demeanour. I would look at him and see Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, feel the need to file in and sidestep with a military precision, say the bare minimum so as to avoid upsetting him.
On the Sunday morning we were in Jabiru we got our full complement of rolls & started hoeing into them over breakfast to be sadly disappointed that they were not the delightfully fresh enjoyment of the previous day. I was sent back to the bakery to lodge a complaint, but I merely determined that he did not bake on a Sunday, and avoided being banned from the establishment for embarrassing the bread Nazi.

Ranger Uranium Mine (RUM) tour
On Mon 06/Jul/09 Marg dropped me at the Jabiru airstrip so I could take the RUM tour, which kicks off from here. For some reason, Marg didn’t feel the need to take up this opportunity. The tour had a full bus load of 20 persons, cost $35 each & lasted 1½ hour. I was a little disappointed that we only left the bus once, to look into the pit, the rest of the time driving the ‘streets’ of Rangerville, or watching video footage of processing stages we weren’t going to see for ourselves.
Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) operate the RUM, have done so since 1980, and expect to continue so until 2021. The mine is an open cut operation although some underground excavation will soon take place to mine an ore vein extending down and under the nearby Magela River. The processing plant contains a crushing, grinding & leaching circuit, a power plant and a water purification unit. Apparently, such sites are detected by aerial surveillance with some those nifty, sophisticated monitors on-board that ‘blip’ & ‘ping’ when some minerals of interest are present; this initiates further investigations.
As a result of this little tour, I reckon I have the know-how to process my own finds of uranium rich rocks. 1 Remove the overburden. 2 Dig the uranium-laden rocks. 3 Crush & grind these rocks down to a fine powder & mix with a little water. 4 Leave this slurry in vessels containing sulphuric acid overnight so the uranium will leach into the acid. 5 Filter the supernatant & purify by reacting with kerosene. 6 Add ammonia & the ammonia compound will precipitate as yellowcake. 7 Heat the yellowcake to 800oC to produce my final product, the green powder, uranium oxide. 8 Pack into 200L drums for shipping overseas.
ERA has responsibilities to rehabilitate the area once they are done. Currently, no untreated water is allowed to leave the site at all. The power plant here, running the operations, also powers Jabiru.

Litchfield National Park (LNP)
LNP is about 130km from SW of Darwin. We visited here the day we returned to Darwin from Jabiru (Tue 07/Jul/09), which meant a detour of ~100km in the wrong direction. This extra 200km seemed good use of our time, & the car we still had, especially in view of the cost of a bus tour to this park from Darwin. LNP covers an area of 143km2 and contains all of the Top End’s natural habitats. We drove in through Batchelor & enjoyed the rolling landscape of wooded hills & curvy roads as a bit of a contrast to the roads to, through & from Kakadu. This ancient landscape has been shaped by water & it features several spring fed streams, waterfalls, waterholes & water eroded sandstone.
We made our first stop at the magnetic termite mounds viewing area. Now, we had seen a lot of termite mounds, and quite big ones too, especially in recent days, but these were pretty special & new to me. Magnetic termite mounds were like planks of wood standing on end - you look out over the surrounding area and see dozens, if not hundreds, all aligned the same way & standing up to maybe 2m tall. It was like a little like looking over some military cemetery.
The explanation is that each colony aligns its mound in its own particular direction, so initially the mounds were in all sorts of random directions, but the alignment that worked best, survived best & predominated. Today, they are all aligned in an almost NS direction - providing the most effective ‘working’ temperature for the mound.
Until now I hadn’t pondered a lot about termites, but the info boards pointed out that there were maybe four different species up here in the Top End. The magnetic mound builders, the cathedral mound builders, the floodplain termites, that make small conical shaped mounds, and the tree-piping termites.
Our next stop was at Florence Falls, and despite the overfull car park, we hiked in, first to the viewing deck, and then down to the plunge pool. A beautiful, scenic location but someone had let the plebs and bogans in. There was barely any space left to squeeze into the pool and the beauty of the setting was diminished by the crowdedness. We did the Shady Creek Walk through some monsoon forest garden to a contrasting hot, dry woodland garden back to the carpark.
Wangi Falls was almost as crowded, so again we did the walk that took us up above the falls, round and behind and then down again on the other side. A great walk. On return, swimming numbers had not really declined but we figured we had to do at least one plunge pool & it was pretty hot. I went in first but was too chicken to swim right under the plunging waters of the falls, but Marg was far more daring and actually got pummelled by those waters. She was pretty pissed off I didn’t get a photo of her enjoying this experience, but I was a long way away & she would have been unrecognisable anyway!

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Photos

Margmobile
Our Mitsubishi Colt [i]Convertible[/i], a lot of fun getting around these parts.

North Terroritorian
Met this fella, with a bunch of his mates, sunning himself at Fogg Dam.

Marg the Charmer
This water python took to Marg and gave her a good cuddle.

Fetch!
Training these crocs to jump is not as easy as it looks.

Hannibal
A 100 year old croc, Hannibal, is quite a whopper & sports a few scars from his encounters in the wild.

The Love Shack
Our bush bungalow at Jabiru.

Ubirr Rock
Some features of this outlier of a former escarpment.

Views from Ubirr
Great views up here - and then there's the landscape!

At the Art Gallery
Nourlangie Outlier.

Rock Art
Ubirr & Nourlangie have some great examples of ancient Aboriginal rock art.

Yellow Waters Cruise
Lots of wildlife sharing these wetlands.
Her's a Jabiru & a crocodile taking in the warmth.

Ranger Uranium Mine
The pit of the Ranger mine. This mine sits with the Arnhem Land escarpment as its backdrop.

Just look at that!
Marg contemplates the majesty of vista.

Florence Falls
A spring fed waaterfall at Litchfield National Park

An interesting insect
Found this little fella up there above Wangi Falls.

Wangi Falls
Litchfield National Park.

Comments

[Tim]

Lightning Man
Your picture of "An interesting insect" reminds me of "Lightning Man" at Nourlangie. I am sure others have said the same thing. As far as Hannibal the giant crocodile, I still think he is over 7 metres. We were lucky to see him close up like you. Kakadu rocks. We were there in February 2008 and that is a great time of the year to go and experience the great days mixed with enormous afternoon storms. Stayed at the "Giant Croc" at Jabiru - good rooms great, breakfast but felt spoilt in nature's great outdoors!