Kakdon't??? Definitely Kakdu!!

We left Darwin with the words of several well-meaning advisors ringing in our ears.  “Kakadu?  We call it Kakadon’t!!  You are better off going to Litchfield.”  We had heard that from a few different people, but were determined to see for ourselves.  From what I had read, the reason most people were disappointed with their visit to Kakadu was that they didn’t give it enough time.  The park is over 20,000 square kilometres, and it takes half a day to travel from one part of the park to another.  People who are time-poor are not able to devote the necessary travel time to let them see the best parts of the park.

With that in mind, we set aside a week to explore Kakadu, hoping to tick off at least some of our wish list of things to see.

Our first taste of Kakadu - only 100km or so to do from here to the visitors centre

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and headed straight for the Bowali Visitor Centre to get any recent road/walk information that we may need, and then made our way to our first camp for the trip, Merl campground, up in the Ubirr region of the park.  From here we would be able to explore Ubirr and also Cahill’s Crossing as we made our way over into Arnhem Land.

Thursday morning saw us up early and heading for the crossing.   Cahill’s Crossing is famous for its saltwater crocodiles and sometimes tricky river crossings, as it is the only gateway into Arnhem Land across the East Alligator River.  As the river is tidal, we had planned our visit to coincide with low-tide, but we really needn’t have worried.  Even high tide is a bit of a non-event at this time of year.  But I wouldn’t want to try it when there’s more water in the river.  If you want to see some people doing stupid things, search “Cahill’s Crossing” on YouTube.

Cahill's Crossing

You can just make out the croc on the mid-right of the photo

We crossed into Arnhem Land and travelled the 25km or so to the community of Gunbalanya where we planned to visit the Injalak artist’s community.  Gunbalanya is a vibrant Aboriginal community of about 1,200 people with views north and east over the floodplains and stone country escarpments.  We spent a good couple of hours exploring the centre, chatting with the artists and seeing how they work and learning about the different types of art mediums and what is involved in each.  After spending a long time there we decided on what we wanted to buy and happily stashed purchases away in the car.

Indigenous artist using ochres for his painting

The women screen print their designs onto fabric

Weaving baskets from pandanus leaves

While we were there we got a good insight into life in such a community.  A two metre saltie had decided to move from his current billabong to one with more water, and while he was travelling, he decided to take a stroll through the town, probably enticed by the smells from the meatworks.  It was nothing for the locals to find him in town the next morning, and he quickly got dispatched for his troubles.  He’ll be dinner for someone by now.

Wrong place, wrong time for this guy

Although we only travelled a short distance into Arnhem Land (our intended trip to Cobourg Peninsula was abandoned when it was found the car needed further work), the scenery was amazing in such a short distance and again I was pressing my face to the window in excitement and wondering how somewhere could be so beautiful.

The Arnhem Land escarpment

We returned in the afternoon in time to make the walk up to Ubirr for sunset.  A circular walk took us past several wonderful Aboriginal rock art sites and then we climbed to the top of a rocky lookout that offered superb views over the floodplains.  This was real “Crocodile Dundee” country and it was just perfect to sit and be still and look.  The place was truly spiritual.

Looking over the floodplains from Ubirr

Rock art at Ubirr

Back down to Merl for a second night.  It should be noted that the mozzies that inhabit the campsite at Merl have to be the most fierce we have encountered to date.  I swear they were trying to pick me up and carry me away with them.  I had insect repellent on, had long pants and sleeves on, had mozzie coils and citronella candles burning and was sitting under a mozzie net, and I was still massacred. 

The next day we packed up and headed down to the absolute opposite end of the park, with the intention of making our way slowly back up.  Originally we were going to head out the bottom of the park towards Katherine, but now we had to return to Darwin, things changed a bit.

We headed for Gunlom, a waterfall and gorge system which was still flowing at this late stage in the dry.  On the way, we stopped and made a detour to visit Maguk waterfall and pool.  The walk in was pleasant enough, and not too difficult (if you don’t count the log I encountered along the way).  We arrived to find this beautiful place was all to ourselves, and although the sign said the crocs were “managed”, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to swim in the lovely plunge pool at the base of the falls.  We just weren’t able to get past the “if you can’t see the bottom or under the banks, don’t swim” warning we’d been given a few weeks before.  So we had to be content with just paddling our feet.  I know that if there had been a croc in that pool, then paddling the feet would have been just as dangerous, but give us a break.  It was 36 degrees, and we soooooo wanted to swim.

So tempting - Maguk

Just paddling

We got to Gunlom campground late in the afternoon and set up camp, and then made our way to the beautiful, pandanus-lined pool at the bottom of the falls to cool off for a while before dinner.  It was just perfect swimming under the face of the huge cliffs.  The next morning we were to make our way up to the top of these cliffs to explore the pools and shady spots up there.

The climb was steep and strenuous, and so we decided to tackle it early in the day, before the heat got up.  We set off before 8am, and although it was only about a half hour climb, we were running with sweat by the time we clambered to the top.  Our reward when getting there was a series of beautiful, still, clear pools, each waiting to cool us down.  There were only a handful of people around so it was easy for us all to have a pool to ourselves, and look out over the plains and woodlands beyond.  We swam there for an hour or so, before once again acting like mountain goats and making our way back down the cliff face to the campground to pack up and move on to the next amazing part of this amazing place.

Infinity pools at the top of Gunlom

Swimming was a treat

We travelled northwards again to Mardugal, a campground approximately half-way up the park and prepared to set up camp for a couple of days.   It was another really hot day, and we were indebted to the campground manager, Gina, who said that campers were welcome to swim at the Cooinda Resort pool, about 6km up the road, a fact we didn’t know.  After setting up camp, we headed up the Warradjan Cultural Centre.  Developed by both the local clans, the display at the centre provides detailed information about local Aboriginal culture to give us an understanding of the connection they have with their families and the land.  It was getting so much easier to understand the more of this place we experienced and the more people we spoke with.  We spent some time looking around the centre, then nipped up the road for a swim.  It was welcome, let me tell you.

The next day took us to Burrunggui  (Nourlangie).  The main attraction here is the rock itself and the rock art galleries it protects.  We followed a circular walk again which took us up through a rock shelter which many generations of original inhabitants used over time.  Even on the hot, still day that we visited, we could notice a breeze moving through this place and we tried to imagine tropical thunderstorms and torrential downpours and this shelter being used to live in for over 20,000 years, only being abandoned fairly recently.  We moved on to view wonderful galleries of ancient rock art.  If you’ve seen pictures of Kakadu rock art, it was almost certainly from this place.  We then continued up a steepish climb to a lookout over the Kakadu escarpment.

Lightning Man - famous rock art at Nourlangie

That afternoon we availed ourselves of another swim in the Cooinda pool before showering and heading off for our sunset cruise on the Yellow Waters wetlands.  This proved to be one of the highlights (who am I kidding? – there were so many highlights!!) of our visit to Kakadu.  We spent a wonderful two hours gliding slowly over the wetlands, with wildlife and birdlife literally metres away.  Lots and lots of crocs were spotted, which kept Doug happy and I was content with the beautiful red lotus lillies and text-book Kakadu sunset.  We were treated to a show of two crocs and a trio of Brolgas arguing over a fish dinner.  Needless the say the Brolgas gave in and left the crocs to it.  We arrived back at Cooinda after our cruise and decided to treat ourselves with a pizza dinner before heading back down the road to our camp. 

One of many on the Yellow Water billabong

Red Lotus Lilly

She has the most beautiful green eyes

Text book Kakadu sunset

No trip to Kakadu would be complete without a visit down the 50km corrugated road to Jim Jim and Twin Falls.  These are the iconic falls that everyone will know from photos and it was exciting to be visiting them.  We left Mardugal early in the morning, and about an hour later had arrived at Garnamarr, the campground near the falls.  We couldn’t believe it, but there was nobody there – we had the place to ourselves.  We knew that would change before nightfall.

We set up the camper, and headed off to our first destination, Twin Falls.  It was about a 14km track to the car park, through a deep river crossing, so we weren’t surprised to see that we were the only ones there.  We walked in about 500m or so, then boarded a barge that would take us another 500m up the river.  Swimming in this part of the river system is not possible due to crocs, and neither is getting too close to the waters’ edge.  From where the boat dropped us off, it was about a 20 minute walk into the gorge to really experience the magic of one of Kakadu’s premier features.

Croc trap on the Twin Falls Creek

Our journey into Twin Falls

White sand, dark rocks and a cool silence greeted us when we arrived at the end of the gorge.  Although the falls had all but stopped flowing, there was a trickle of clear water flowing and you couldn’t help but wonder about how special this place was.  Again, like at Ubirr, I just sat and felt the country around me.

Only a trickle at this time of year

Retracing our steps, we caught the barge back out and made our way back to our car by lunch time.  We drove back and headed for Jim Jim Falls, getting to the car park in time to make sometime to eat.  I had not been looking forward to this walk.  Not because I didn’t want to see the impressive scenery, but because everyone I had spoken with said it was the hardest walk in Kakadu.  Reading the signage at the start of the track did nothing to reassure me either with the words in big red letters “DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE DIFFICULTY OF THIS WALK”.  Oh great!!!

It was only 1km each way and started out fairly easily with a well formed path, soon moving to rocks and tree roots as the path followed the creek along.  So far so good, and the path was nicely shaded by the trees at the side of the creek, so the going was good.  Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all!!  This continued for about 500 metres of so, with the rocks slowly increasing in size, until the path emerged at the side of the creek, in full sun, and the rocks turned to boulders and the path disappeared, with only small orange markers intermittently showing the way. 

Boulders as big as a bus!!!

The second half of the walk was really hard going, but how many chances to you get to get to the base of Jim Jim Falls?  Turning back wasn’t an option, so we pushed on and eventually found our way to the base.  Jim Jim was dry by this time in the season, we had expected that, but what we hadn’t expected was the absolute enormity of the place.  Shadowed by 150m cliffs the pool at the bottom as deep and turquoise and although icy cold, was extremely welcome after our clamber in.  It was truly humbling to be sitting there at the base of falls that in the wet season would frighten you with their ferocity.  Although I took a photo while I was there, there really wasn’t any point, because photos just couldn’t do justice to this place.

Unless you see it you can't understand the majesty

After swimming and cooling right back down again, we got ready for the clamber out.  Somehow the return journey never seems as long as the way in.  We got back to the car and after drinking a few welcome litres of water, we made our way back to camp.  Our day was truly special and made even more so because we had these amazing places all to ourselves.  Not many visitors to Kakadu can say that.  Just lucky I guess, but we felt really privileged.  Back at camp our luck continued, as there was no other campers in the entire campground, we had that to ourselves too.

Campground all to ourselves

Our last morning in Kakadu came all too quickly, and we packed up camp and got ready to return to Darwin.  On the way we stopped in the Mamukala Wetlands, a bird hide on the edge of a huge billabong where, at this late stage in the dry season, all the birds a gathering.  It was magical to see them all, especially the gracious Jabiru.  We spent a while there admiring the activity (but not the smell of the drying mudflats) before reluctantly making our way out.

A jabiru at Mamukala

Although we spent a week in the park and covered a good few of the “must-sees”, there was so much that we didn’t get to do, either because of lack of time, or because it was just too hot at this time of year.  But it doesn’t matter, because we both know that we’ll be back to Kakadu, maybe next time just after the wet season, to see it in its glory.

Back to Darwin, and a day spent catching up on washing, shopping etc while the car was in getting sorted out by the Landrover techs and today we were ready and raring to go on the next stage of our adventures.  We drove south from Darwin and headed towards Katherine, camping at the famous Katherine Gorge.  Famous and popular!!!  Our national park campground is by far the flashiest we’ve ever stayed at, and is busy with lots and lots of hired motorhomes and the odd school trip or two!

I think our stay here will be short, after we’ve seen the beautiful gorge we might leave it to the others and move on.  We’re too used to being on our own to want to share space unless we choose to.  After this we’re moving back out into the wilds as we follow the road round the gulf and into Queensland.  Reception will be non-existent so more will follow when I can.