Sep 26 - Oct 1 (Day 238 - 244) - Kakadu National Park (Palmerston to Douglas-Daly)

Saturday 26 September

At last - we're leaving Darwin! Not that we were in a mad rush to get away from the swimming pools, but it was good to be on the next leg of our journey. We've never been into Kakadu before - on our last trip we went into Litchfield National Park which we really enjoyed, and we've heard mixed reports about Kakadu, so we were keen to form our own opinion and see such a famous National Park!

First up we had to get a slow leak in one of the caravan tyres fixed up at a local tyre repair shop. Thankfully they had a nice air conditioned waiting room! We then went into the Gateway shopping centre again to buy another toaster as our last one broke :(  and then onto a service station to check the tyre pressures.

When I hopped out a lovely gentleman told her there was a horrible noise coming from our caravan wheels. It turned out most of the wheel nuts on the back left were loose! Eeek. Greg reckons this was his fault as he reckons he got interrupted while working on the van back at the caravan park and didn't do the final tighten up. Thankfully we hadn't driven far from the caravan park and had only been to the nearby shopping centre otherwise this could have been quite a different story. Thankful to God for keeping us safe and for the lovely gentleman letting us know. 

We travelled south east down the Stuart Highway and took a left at the curiously-named suburb of Humpty Doo. From here you start the journey into Kakadu National Park, the road through which is a giant loop. At Humpty Doo, you travel east along the Arnhem Highway for about 250km until you reach Jabiru, which is the only town in Kakadu. As the name suggests, the Arnhem Highway carries on out into Arnhem Land, east of Jabiru. However for the drive through Kakadu itself, this is as far east as you take the Arnhem Highway, as at Jabiru you then turn south west on the Kakadu Highway which eventually leads you back to the Stuart Highway. 

 

Looking east from Window to the Wetlands

Our first stop on the way out was at the 'Window to the Wetlands' visitor centre. While this isn't officially in Kakadu, this part of the country shares Kakadu's very flat style with lots of low-lying country, wetlands and floodplains. 'Window to the Wetlands' sits atop one of the few hills in the area and commands an impressive view for what must be tens of kilometres in each direction, and gives one a very good view of the countryside.

Looking north east back along the road on which we entered.

The rest of the centre was dedicated to showing some of the creatures and ecosystems in wetlands. There was also a 1990's video narrated by John Waters, entitled 'The Big Wet', describing the changes in seasons in the Top End, the different intensities the wet season can have, and how the different animals and ecosystems rely on and respond to the wet. It was extremely interesting!

We were very impressed with this stopover and were surprised there's not more made of it! If you're heading out to Kakadu, make sure you give yourself at least an hour here, preferably two.

 

Spot the Salty!

Our camp at Coroborree Park

We continued our journey east and stopped for the night at Coroborree Tavern, which is about 1/4 of the way along Arnhem Highway. We've been trying to find places to stay that have a pool or at least somewhere where we can cool off as it’s so hot and humid now. Most days it’s been 35-40 so having a dip every few hours has really helped to cool down. They keep a 4 metre salty in an enclosure (which we did get to see a little bit of its head) and a fairly small fresh water croc (which we didn’t get to see at all) and also 2 buffalos (1 being an albino) and a few boar.  Also saw quite a few wallabies having a much on the lovely green grass nearby.

 

No freshwater croc in sight, but they did have a turtle!

 

The boys also found an old LandCruiser they enjoyed playing in and pretending to drive a manual. Greg stepped all the kids through how a manual worked and provided the noises that go with the revs and changing of gears. It was pretty funny when the kids got things wrong, and, for example, accidentally shifted from 4th back to 1st instead of 3rd, and Greg had to imitate an old engine redlining and exploding!

Later on after a swim to cool off we treated ourselves to a lovely meal that they had on offer for $15 per person.

Sunday 27 September

Today we moved on from Coroborree to Jabiru.  It’s definitely hot, the car was showing 37 degrees at around 10am.  We had looked up a few places around Jabiru that could have been a bit cheaper but without power but we decided considering the temperatures we would opt for power so that we could at least cool down with the fans and sleep well at night and also have the benefit of the pool close by.

Jabiru

Our camp at Kadaku Caravan Park

Once we had set up we enjoyed a lovely cool off in the pool.  The pool is a pretty reasonable size and fortunately is covered by a huge shade sail over it. Not only does this keep the sun off, but we've found it keeps the pool water noticeably cooler. This is one frustration up here - everything stays so hot, even overnight, that things really just don't cool down too much, and looking forward to a refreshing cool dip often turns into a less satisfying lukewarm bath.

 

They have a separate spa here, and the kids started walking around to make a whirlpool. A few other kids joined in, plus Greg and I, and at one stage we ended up with about 15 people joining in! Was quite a good workout and we all had great fun.

Ahh! The pool!

 

Our intention was to use Jabiru as a base for several other sight-seeing activities in the general area. Two of the key attractions from here were Ubirr Rock and Cahill's Crossing. Ubirr Rock has a collection of Aboriginal rock art but is also apparently a lovely place to see the sunset. Cahill's Crossing is a low causeway over the East Alligator River on the eastern border of Kakadu National Park where you travel across into Arnhem Land; however its key point of interest is the saltwater crocodiles! They congregate here at high tide as the Barramundi get washed up over the causeway with the tide and have a real feeding frenzy!

Rock escarpment near Jabiru

So about 5pm we drove out to Ubirr Rock. It's about a 35 minute drive north-east from Jabiru. While much of Kakadu is low floodplains, there are rock escarpments here and there which looked striking in the afternoon sun.

 

 

First up was the rock art. I guess it's not really a huge thing for us but it was still interesting looking at things which had apparently been painted so many years ago.The paintings themselves were fairly simple but they all had a story, and I guess they would only have had very simple equipment.

From here we started to climb Ubirr Rock. As we climbed up it felt similar to the top of Uluru, and we pondered if the time might come when this too is banned from people who want to share the lovely views... 

Climbing to the top of Ubirr Rock

Anyway the climb was relatively simple; and the view from the top was pretty spectacular!

Towards the west of Ubirr Rock stretches kilometres of wide, flat, wetland area over which the setting sun casts a beautiful light, especially as there was still some standing water in the wetlands even at the end of the dry season.

Looking north from Ubirr Rock...

...  north-east ...

... and east.

 

Since the sun had set we decided to join the crowds of people heading back down off the rock. I (Greg) got this photo as the others were heading down.

Mim, Matt, Jude and Bek at Ubirr Rock

 

Anyway... I was just about to head back and join them when I caught the slightest glint of pink in the sky from after the sun had set. So I decided to hang about for a bit and see if it got any better. You decide for yourselves if it was worth it...!

Yours truly chasing the sunset!

 

 

The sunset just got better...

 

... and better ...

 

... and better! This is probably my favourite with the rock in the foreground
providing some context and depth!

 

 

 

Monday 28 September

This morning we visited Cahills Crossing to see crocs up close catching fish. Well that was the aim anyway. We arrived just before hightide which is what was recommended and waited around for about an hour and saw a few crocs but not anywhere near as many as we thought we would considering some of the photos we had seen of what could be there. So that was a bit disappointing. It was so hot as well so we didn’t feel like waiting around for ages to see if anything else would happen. So back to the van and a swim to cool off.

The rest of the day was just sitting by the pool hop in and out and coming and doing some school and business work and working on the blog. 😊

 

Tuesday 29 - Wednesday 30 September

Was a quiet day at the caravan park just getting through more school and business work and cooling off in the pool.  We also met some other families who are also travelling for the rest of the year or have been on the road for much longer. It's surprising how many of these other people on the road also have their own Facebook or Instagram page, and their own family's 'name' as we did - in this case we met Family.Gap.Year and the Venturing Four. Nice companions to The Roaming 5! They have kids up to about the age of 10 so all three families' kids enjoyed playing together.

 It’s amazing some of the stories you hear. We have some great chats about religious matters with a few people along the day. While we were at Gregory River we met an Aboriginal JW, and while in Darwin we chatted to a gentleman who was brought up a Mormon but doesn’t go to church nowdays but still very much lives by the principles and he had quite a few questions which Greg was able to answer.  I think some of the questions were more just him mulling over things and what he saw as inconsistencies with the Bible rather than trying to search for the Truth on the matter, but it was still great to hear someone elses way of looking at things. Helps us sharpen our own understanding and conviction.

While we were chatting, one of the other family's said they'd been out to Cahill's Crossing and loved it, but they'd gone a bit later after high tide which is when the action started! Seems like we left too early yesterday! So the next morning we packed up the van, parked it in the visitors' carpark and headed back to Cahills crossing. It was definitely worth it this time - the water level was much higher, the crocs more active and many more of them too - we saw 22 in the water at one stage!

The water level was already noticeably higher and flowing
over the causeway compared to two days ago

The crocs waiting for their feed!

The river's flowing faster now - note all the mud being
washed upstream by the rising tide.

Croc #17 or so taking a water slide across the causeway
to join his brothers in the feeding trough!

More crocs chilling...

A fish that was lucky...

... and one which wasn't!

Having seen the croc activity we wanted to, we headed back to the caravan park to collect the van and did a bit of shopping in Jabiru Foodland. Was nice to be in a Foodland again - a little taste of SA! We then made our way down towards Cooinda where we would be closer to other things we thought of doing in Kakadu. Jim Jim Falls has dried up now, Jim Jim Billabong is closed and most of the other falls are either dry or have closed for the season others haven’t opened because of Covid. Also some we just missed because we are so over corrugated roads. Are we just getting a bit soft? I’m not sure. I think the heat and humidity drains a lot out of us also! The only swimming place which still had water going over it is Maguk Falls / Barramundi River so we plan to check that out soon.

Thursday 1 October

I can’t believe it’s October already. Wow time has just flown by and we have seen so much and there is so much more we could have seen.  But we didn’t come on this trip to just see things (although that’s one factor when going road tripping) it was more the benefit of being altogether and strengthening our bond together both spiritually and naturally.  Which we feel it has. It doesn’t always feel like in the way we want but it’s always in the way God wants.

Today we woke up very early (5.30am) to go on the Yellow Water Cruise just a few minutes out of Cooinda.  It was a 2 hour boat ride with a guide showing us all the lovely native birds and seeing salt water crocs up close. We definitely felt it was a worthwhile going on the cruise just to see the wildlife up close.

Dennis, our guide

Sea Eagle

Jabiru, Australia's only stork

Whistling Ducks

The centre of these flowers contain edible nuts, similar apparently to water chesnuts

Things are just so peaceful and still in the morning.

Azure Kingfisher

A saltwater croc up close!

Brolga

Some type of swift or tern

Another saltie!

When we arrived back we packed up the van and headed for Maguk waterfall.  The road in was so corrugated we ended up stopping on the side of the road and letting our tyres down so that the ride was much smoother.  A few cars that were going past stopped to make sure we were okay and we let them know we were fine, its been such a lovely thing while travelling especially out in the more remote areas that others will often stop and make sure you are ok. The community spirit and thoughtfulness of each other is really something lovely to experience.

We arrived at Maguk and climbed over the rocks which seemed to take ages to get to the waterfall but it was worth seeing. We would have just liked the water to feel a bit cooler for it to be a bit more refreshing that is all. But still nice all the same.

As we walked back over the boulders it got quite hot so we stopped off at another nice looking swimming spot (that looked croc free) and had another quick swim to cool off before walking back to the car.  We had lunch back at the van before heading off towards Douglas-Daly.

On our way out on the track we came across a little puddle which we avoided on the way in but the boys asked Greg if he could go through it. I mean... looks harmless enough?

 

While it wasn't deep, a split second after entering it we realised it might be a bit different to what we'd expected...!

 

Shortly after the whole rig looked like this!

Once we got to the start of the track in there was a little pull off bay where you could pump your tyres up before returning to the bitumen and we met another family having lunch there who were from Colonel Light Gardens, not far from home. They were just up this way for a quick visit in Kakadu for 2 weeks after flying up for a friends wedding in Darwin.

As we drove the mud dried fairly quickly because of the heat but it formed quite an interesting pattern on the bonnet!

We made our way through the rest of Kakadu as we didn't feel like bracing ourselves for anymore corrugations. Are we just getting soft or what? Also after a while of seeing different waterfalls they all seem to be much the same. All magnificent in themselves but after you have seen a few it's not quite as amazing. If that makes sense. 

After leaving Kakadu we turned north briefly and headed up towards Douglas-Daly. Someone had told us there were some lovely swimming spots past a research farm in the areas so we stopped at the caravan park for the night.

-- Mim and Greg