Darwin

We have arrived in Darwin.  Staying 23kms out at Howard Springs Caravan Park.  Its hot here, around 31o. Spent the first day, just getting the dust out of the Suzi and the bus.  The park encourages you to use the water so we washed both vehicles on our site.  The park is huge but packed.  Helen & Eric are sleeping in a mesh gazebo type structure on their site, whilst waiting for their motorhome to be repaired.   Havent bothered to look around Darwin yet, just chilling out by the pool - 3 pools, 3 spas.   Our "neighbours" moved in yesterday, ex-cop from Colac.  LOVES a beer.  Happy hour with him started at 5.30 and ended at 10pm, when we had to cook our dinner.   Went out this morning to buy more beer and they wanted $58 for a slab of 30 VB cans at the Thirsty Camel up the road.  Will have to go to Coles/Woollies tomorrow and check them out.

Kakadu

The drive thru Kakadu Nat Park is pretty disappointing.  Whilst there is a lot of growth, and burning off, the look is plain scrubby.  The palms take the edge off but it isnt as tropical as I thought.  Perhaps in the wet season it is nicer.  One thing for sure, if you dont get off the road, you wont see anything.  All the gorges/waterfalls/billabongs etc that feature in the tourist brochures all require big kms to get  in.  Once there, most of them require a fair bit of hard walking as well.   Once off road and at your destination though, the scenery will blow you away.  The rocks faces/vegetation/water is so different to what you see on the Arnhem Hwy.  Our big walk to Jim Jim Falls nearly killed us, there were 4 little kids there, 3-6y.o. who had done it.  I was amazed.  Then their mum told me that had walked the 4 hr walk to the top of the falls the day before.   Crazy!!!!!!!   We didnt get to see it all, too wet, even at this time of year, but I beleive the best way to see it would either be by air to get a real view of the pools and falls above the ones you can access or perhaps to visit in the wet season, but then Im guessing access would also be a problem.     You have to pay $25 p.p. to drive into Kakadu with a Nat.Park Pass, (it is good for 14 days) then on top of that are camping fees, ranging from $5-$10p.p. p.nt. The whole time we were there, meeting rangers and visiting touristy type venues, we were never approached for our pass.   The problem is, when purchasing, you have to write your name on the pass at the counter.  This way you cant pass it on when you have finished.  Assuming you got asked for it and then asked for ID as well. 

I may be out of line here, but when visiting the Aboriginal Cultural Centres, it is always implied that we are visitors to this land of ours.  As they are the rightful owners, we are asked to respect their culture and their wishes.   Up here, 1% of the population is aboriginal, yet we cant buy alcohol when we want or in the quantities that we want.   We have to show a Drivers Licence ID which is scanned before we can purchase.  At Katherine, starting soon, Woollies will no longer carry cask wine to help this 1% of the population.   Stuff the locals and the tourists.   A friend here has a wife working for the Federal Police, she has photo ID and has passed some pretty strict tests to join this Force.  She doesnt have a drivers licence and so she cannot buy alcohol at all.  No drivers licence no grog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Off my soapbox now.

Ubirr and Nourlangie Rocks

Both these places feature lovely walks thru beautiful rocky outcrops, not only to view the scenery but to the large array of aboriginal rock art.  It was everywhere, sometimes it took you a while just to take each one in, the more you look, the more you saw  .Often the artwork was in places that were physically impossible to reach.  How they did it or their "spirits" as they say did it is mind boggling.

Jim Jim Falls

After promising no more dirt roads to the gang, we were off on a 53km dirt/gravel road, with 10kms of sand at the end.  Wanted to see the two waterfalls, that feature in lots of tourist pics of Kakadu.  Jim Jim and Twin Falls.  The road to Twin Falls, at the end of Jim Jim, was closed due to it being too wet.  That has been the case a couple of times here, where roads to falls/gorges havent been open.   The road in wasnt too bad until we got to the sand bit.   Unfortunately, Eric, who was in front got bogged up to the belly of his suzi.  We took a different fork in the road and got through.  We had to wait for sometime for someone to come along with the right stuff to drag him back out.   The road was quite bad, with lots of deep troughs and deep water crossings.  This 53km took 2 and 1/2 hrs.  Once we got thru it, we were rapt.  The walk to the Falls was 900M so we took our swimming gear and picnic with us and set off.  This 900M walk took us 1 and 1/2 hrs.  No real path, just some markers, we had to scramble over huge boulders, wet with water and sand to access the "sandy beach" at the falls.  So hot, got behind some towels, got into our togs and into the water.  It was refreshingly cold.   Had a picnic on the rocks with fish swimming around our feet.   The plunge pool at the base of the falls was 22M deep and we didnt go near it.  The walk back was just as hard.  Three of us took tumbles off the rocks as we made our way back.   Thats it, no more big climbs for us we were all seriously stuffed.

Kakadu

We did a 2 hr. cruise on the Alligator River, getting up close and personal with the many varied types of birds living in the wetlands.   The scenery was absolutely beautiful.  It was a leisurely time spent in the warm sunshine.   Lots of crocs here, naturally we were all excited as soon as saw the first one.   Then one by one we saw more.  Lot of beautiful birds, saw the Jabirus (NT symbol), wild brumbies and pretty water plants, lotus flowers, water lillies, fish etc.   After a while, the excitment of the crocs seemed to wear off a little.  The boat was able to get in nice and close to them though and some looked almost fake, but their colors in the full sun were amazing.   A few gave us a toothy grin as we putted past.   Once I saw them, I wasnt that keen on visiting anymore billabongs.   A great day out.  Apparently the day before, the people on the breakfast cruise saw a croc take a feral pig, what a sight that would have been for the cameras to catch.

Katherine to Kakadu

The Billabong

Camped up at Kakadu

We left Katherine, excited to be travelling to World Heritage Kakadu.   Stopped off at the town of Pine Creek, where there are old mine settlements and a lookout.   Had morning tea, then took off.  As we are much quicker and more organised, we lead the way.  30kms down the road, we were wondering "where are they". Couldnt get them on the CB, couldnt see them in the rear mirror.   We couldnt work out why we hadnt reached the Arnhem Hwy turnoff, it was just "out of town:"  Then we realised we were going the wrong way.  Naturally Rick was "HAPPY" with his navigator.   We had to wait to do a u-turn and then hightail it back to Pine Creek and then onto the right Hwy.  Naturally everyone else had gone that way.   Of course, as happened when you are in a hurry, we hit roadworks, burning-offs, single lane roads and then Ricks favourite  -- the caravaneer doing 70kmh.   Much cursing and nail biting overtaking later, we got in touch with our fellow travellers.   They were waiting at the Mary River Roadhouse.   As we drove towards the stop, they were all out on the Highway waving towels, etc. to flag us down, to make sure we didnt get lost. What a bummer we took the wrong turn, not for the first time though.   Had to laugh later, once we got over the "p-----off" feeling.    Off we then all went and got camped up for the night.    We were just finishing up Happy Hour when I decided we should go visit the billabong, just close to camp.   At first I saw, the warning "croc" signs, but they are everywhere so thats OK.  Then as we started on the path, the forest seemed a little too dense and dark and then the swampy water areas seemed too close to the path.   I started to feel a little scared, glad when we got to the Billabong and even happier to get out and back to the bus.   More happy hour needed.

Katherine to Kakadu

We are currently in Jabiru in Kakadu, making our way to Darwin tomorrow.  For those interested, I will try to update the blog in the next day or two.   No service for the 5 days we have been in Kakadu and our friends Eric & Helen have broken down here in Jabiru.   No mechanic here able to fix it so a flat bed tow truck is coming from Darwin tomorrow.  Their Winnebago Motorhome has to be towed into Darwin to an Iveco dealer tomorrow, they dont know whats wrong with it or how long it may take to either look at it or fix it. so too much going on today/tonight.   We are still alive, still having fun, its warm and muggy.  Jumped into the swimming pool here in Jabiru at the caravan park as soon as we booked in.   Long day parked by the side of the roadf with our friends waiting to find out what was going to happen to them.