August 2014 - Kakadu

Heading east from Darwin we got onto the Arnhem Highway towards Kakadu National Park.

The Bark Hut Inn was a couple of hours drive from Darwin so we stopped over for lunch.  These old pubs have great character and serve their communities as a pub, general store, fuel stop, meeting place and quite often the post office and newsagent.  This one also has a little caravan park out the back.

The food is always good and the atmosphere created by their unique outback decor makes it well worth the stop. Buffalo hamburger with bush relish, chips and salad was on the menu and it was absolutely delicious.  

After leaving Darwin I was looking forward to a spot of fishing again, and as we had picked up a great brochure in Darwin on the Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge, we headed down a dusty gravel road with great anticipation. Unfortunately, I think the brochure was printed many years ago as the caravan park section was nothing like what it showed in the brochure.The place was all closed up and looked deserted which put us off from the beginning, the fishing spot was another 20 kilometres further along the dusty gravel road and the caravan was already filthy from the trip in.  We stayed one night, but only because it was too late in the day to continue onto somewhere else.

The next day we continued on to Kakadu which is a world heritage listed national park that covers almost 20,000 square kilometres, and for the sake of visitors it is divided up into 6 main regions.  The regions are, East Alligator, South Alligator, Nourlangie, Yellow Water, Mary River and Jabiru which is the only white settlement within the park.

We based ourselves at the Jabiru Lodge and Caravan Park which is the same place that we stayed 22 years ago when we were here with the kids.  Back then, I was happy to tell everyone that I thought it was the best caravan park in Australia, but it has aged a bit since then but still very clean with nice spacious sites and a great swimming pool.

East Alligator River at low tide

The East Alligator region is to the north east of Jabiru and the river is the dividing line between Kakadu and Arnhem Land.

Cahills Crossing at low tide - note direction of flow

  There is a causeway across the river called Cahills Crossing, and although it is some 50 odd kilometres from the sea at Alligator Head, it is greatly affected by the rise and fall of the tide.  When the high tide at Alligator Head is greater than 6.3 metres, the water backs up and the river actually starts running backwards.

Cahills Crossing at high tide - note direction of flow

  This brings many fish up the river and the crocodiles line up on both sides of the causeway for a feeding frenzy.  The crocs just lay in the water facing into the oncoming water with their front legs spread wide out and as soon as a fish comes into their waiting trap "snap" and the fish is lunch.

It’s amazing to stand on the bank and watch the water running down stream, and then about half an hour before high tide, the low side of the causeway backs up with water, and everything goes dead quiet for a few minutes once both sides of the river are at the same level, before the river starts flowing backwards.

Another 3 or 4 kilometres further on from Cahills Crossing is the aboriginal rock art site of Ubirr (Oo-beerr) where there are many paintings showing the different types of food that can be found around this area.  These paintings are said to be 4000 years old and tell the history and culture of the aboriginal people who lived in this area.

There is a painting of some stick figures underneath a ledge some 15 metres off the ground with no access to the area at all.  Aboriginal people believe Mimi spirits painted these sorcery figures.  Mimi spirits are so tall and thin they can put paintings in unlikely places. They simply lift the rocks down, paint them, then put them back into place.  Although Mimi spirits are invisible to most people, they taught Aboriginal people to paint many of the traditional designs.

A moderately steep, 250 metre climb from here takes you to the top of a rocky lookout that gives a fantastic view out over the Nadab floodplain.  This is another of those “WOW” moments when you reach the top and the floodplain unfolds before you.  Four panoramic photos just covers the 270 degree view that you get from here, even the photos don’t do it justice.

Cooinda is fifty kilometres south of Jabiru and sits on the edge of the Yellow Water Billabong which is a permanent billabong fed from the South Alligator River.

We took the sunset cruise around the billabong and out into the river where there was an abundance of wildlife, whistling ducks, big crocodiles, kingfishers, white belly sea eagles and the icon of Kakadu, the black neck stork or Jabiru as it is locally known.  These are beautiful birds with their bright pink legs and long black necks that forage around in the wetlands looking for fish and frogs to eat.

The guide told us that this one was a male who had a giant 2 metre diameter nest high up in a tree about half a kilometre away with a female and 3 young which had only just been hatched out.  The parents take it in turn to catch fish and then fly back to the nest and regurgitate the food for the young while the other adult bird goes off foraging for food.

The river is full of Lotus Flower water lilies with a beautiful large pink flowers and a leaf up to 450 mm in diameter which is completely water proof so the indigenous people use them for carrying water from the river back to their camp.

Sunset across the billabong brought a whole different light and feeling to the place.  Mamukala (Mar-moo-car-lar) wetlands has a bird hide and viewing platform which allows visitors to view the bird life on the wetlands. We visited this place 22 years ago with the kids and the wetlands were full of magpie geese and the noise was deafening.

This time we were about 6 to 8 weeks too early in the season as the geese don’t visit this area until towards the end of September, however the view is still awesome as there are always pelicans, shags and many other water birds foraging for food amongst the lotus flower water lilies.

The last place we visited on our way out of Kakadu was Bukbukluk lookout which has a short walk from the car park to the lookout across the old Goodparla Station.

The local aboriginal people recognise that Kakadu has 6 different seasons and each season brings different food sources into the area.  We visited in the middle of the dry season and found that the area wasn't as abundant with birds and animals as we had remembered from our previous visit.

A lot of visitors say that it is not worth the effort coming to Kakadu, and we found that we had to work a bit harder and walk a bit further to get to see what was on display, where as in Litchfield, we could drive almost up to all the attractions.