Watch out Salties about!
From Aussie Travels in Kakadu National Park, Australia on Nov 01 '08
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Our first trip back on the road was to Kakadu national park. It's about 200kms from Darwin and is one of the largest parks in the NT. It's famous for it crocodiles and scenery (Rogue was filmed here). The tropical climate makes for lots of greenery, water holes and water falls (and planty of breeding ground for mosquitos).
You have to be up early if you want to get to Kakadu so it was a 6am pick-up from our hostel. We just managed to spot our tour-guide through sleep-filled eyes. Now, we all know Tori is not at her best in the morning and the tour guide chose this moment to point out that our bags were too big. Too big!!! We left the huge ones in the van and had managed to squeeze walking boots,sleeping bags and clothes into one small hold all each. Needless to say the guide nearly lost some vital equipment.
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Baggage issues solved, we boarded the biggest 4wd we've ever seen. Complete with 16 seats and clearance big enough to clear small mountain ranges. Short of a Sunami or Everest appearing in our tracks we were confident that we would be able to get everywhere. It was at this point we were also glad we had decided not to attempt the trip in our own trusty wagon!
Its about 2 hours out to the top end of the park so we had time to catch up on a few extra Zzzz. First stop, Croboree billabong (big lake thing with lots of lily pads). We hopped off the bus and boarded a little boat complete with enthusiastic retiree who was to be our guide for our hour boat trip. We say boat but it was more like a piece of ply-wood with seats on top and a small motor. Slightly alarming when you are about to trip down the river with about 10 crocodiles per kilometer. It was only once on the way that our trusty guide chose to inform us that this Billabong has the largest known crocodile in the world was a resident (a whopping 6.4 metres!) Crocodiles of only 2 metres have been known to attack and eat humans.
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Rule 1-standing (clearly broken by a German in the first 5 minutes), Rule 2- keep all arms in the boat (strangley no-one attempted to break this one). There were no rules about swimming in the Billabong....
It was a beautiful sunny morning and a lovely way to spend an hour. Our guide was full of information and showed us all the different wildlife living at the billabong. We saw huge stork-type birds- the only carnivores on the river other than the crocs;lots of different types of ducks; wallabees drinking at the waters edge (a dangerous occupation) and of course, lots of crocs. We were lucky enough to see a couple that were about 4 metres having an argument about territory. At least that's what we think it was our guide told us that basically crocs hate everything and are liable to growl at or consume anything that get in thier path (including thier mate if she gets frisky on the wrong day). There was plenty of splashing and growling but no injury-it was all handbags and hairpulling before the little one retreated.
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Back on the bus we headed off into the depth of the park. As became the theme for the trip for the trip we didn't know where to as our guide made a point of not telling us and would only plan 2 activities at a time (which usually involved the one we were currently on and the meal after..)
It turned out that our first walk of the day was at an aboriginal art site in the north of the park-Ubirr. We had to walk up the side of a moutain and the art was hidden in small caves on the way up. Before white man came the aboriginals would have lived in these caves and used the paintings to pass on stories and knowledge to younger memeber. They have no written word so all thier stories are told this way and passed on through the generations. There is still evidence in the caves of area where they used to cook and prepare food.
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All of the paintings are created using paints created from the earth-most of it is Ochre (Yellow and red in colour). These are the oldest paintings as the white (chalk) and black (charcoal) fade first. The paintings are fairly primitive but it's amazing to think that some of them date back nearly 2000 years possibly much more. Some even show how to identify parts of animlas, ready to eat- not quite the cook book we'd like to use though-goana (lizard), tutles and snakes! Some even show thier first encouters with white man- they've added funny little details like a smoking pipe and a gun to show the difference between us and them (they could have also added a can of deoderant- that'll be the main difference these days!)
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From the top of the moutain, above the rock art, there were some amazing views across the park. Which, having regained our breath, we were able to enjoy. We should let you know at this point that the whole tour was at about 42 deg and 80% humidity. Great for sweating out any nasties, not so great for looking glamourous, any form of human contact, or in fact any form of exercise without fear of collapse (well, at least for Tori, Ben's been in training the paddocks)
After the walk we had lunch- one thing we can say about this tour is that we were well fed- there was food coming out of our ears. No beer in the day though much to the boys distress, our guide was very concious that we didn't dehydrate (or fall down a moutain drunk). We had a couple of honeymooners with us and Oli was very upset he missed out on daytime drinking (but then you have to question what kind of crazy bastards would spend thier honeymoon roasting and sleeping rough).
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The last walk of the day our guide had something special in store for us. As we had had a group vote and decided to skip a couple of the harder waterfalls (who wants to hike vertically in super-heat?) he took us to a different part of the park and on a climb that would give us 360 deg views of the park. It was worth the climb, as you'lll see from the photos, but Tori did nearly die-along with a few japanese and a fat bird from Manchester. Out guide waits for no one and completed a 45 deg 600 metre climb in 10 minutes. The rest of us arrived in intervals in varying degrees of exhaustion complete with full body sweats and red faces.
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After all out hard work we were rewarded with with swags (a waterproof slapping bag that you get in and sleep outside) or tents for beds. We chose the tent figuring with the heat we could at least strip off. Lying butts out, uncovered on a swag in a country full of snakes, spiders and scorpions didn't appeal.
Day 2- Early to rise. Awoken by the buzz of flies and intense heat at 6am. Breakfast was toast on the fire (burnt) and tea from the billy can- the true Australian way. The it was off to cultural camp to lean about bush-tucker from real aboriginals (the none who aren't now drunk in towns- not very PC we know but sadly true). We learnt how to cook a crocodile tail in the ground using stones ann bark, had a go a throwing a spear (not a great idea to hand these over to tired backpackers) and finally had a musical interlude with lots of fart noises being made as we attempted to play the digeridoo (apparently these are mens thins and women shouldn't touch them- luckily exceptions are made for us white-fellas).
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After being educated the rest of the day was spent climbing (ouch again- sweat, sweat, sweat- and a torn pair of trousers for Tori) and swimming (sweet relief). All of the water-holes were beautiful with stunning views of the park. We were either a-top cliffs and waterfalls or wading at the bottom of gorges. All water holes come complete with warning that crocodiles live there and swimming is at your own risk. Our guide assured us that all the swimming places are checked and only little freshies ahould live there. The salties can move in during the wet season though when the water levels rise and everything floods. We were told they would have been removed since then though and the signs were just for liability. However the tale about a backpacker who was taken from the middle of a group of friends whilst swimming, in a well-used swimming spot, did not cheer us. The only compensation we were given is that apparently she was on her period which croc bait- Ben felt better, Tori was left to fend for herself. I can assure you all that we did swim and return with all our limbs. We did spend an awful lot of swimming time looking down though and Tori always made sure she had a swimming buddy who looked more edible near-by.
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Our campground for the night was a real treat. At the base of the cliffs was a gorgeous pool with waterfall in the background (not quite up and running yet as early wet season) A romantic scene in Crocodile Dundee was filmed here and Ben threw himself of the very tree they sat in into the cool green waters-romanacing Tori on it was apparently not an option! The cane toads made for companions during our swim. Having been told of thier evil ways, killing all the local wildlife having been introduced, and thier mass breeding (up to 30,000 eggs from 1 female at an time- strewth!). This was our first encouter with them. While the Aussies tried to destroy the baby frogs hopping around the edge by massacring them with a flip flop, we swam with the tadpoles.
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Sunset was enjoyed from the top of the campsite. We had another grueling climb (by this point Tori is really going off the guide and Ben is wishing his girlfriend did more exercise) to the top of a cliff. When we got to the top there were 3 pools, all at bath-water temperature-lovely. You could sit in the pools and be right at the edge of the cliff looking down over the whole park. We watched the sunset across the park and over the water-totally blissful (well apart from some fellow brits who appeared, were gobby and left cans of beer in our sunset picture-don't you just love the Brits abroad). We walked back down the cliff in the dark, without losing anyone much to our amazement- bet our guide was glad we all signed the waiver that said her could be irresponsible and kills us without us being able to make a claim. Another night in swags and a great BBQ cooked over a fire (what a surprise that the boys helped with the meal this night- it's amazinf what the presence of fire will do). Ear-plugs in tonight as we pitched-up next to the honeymooners!
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The last day was just spent vegging and driving back to town. A sunrise walk back up the cliff for those who were game- Ben headed off being a real explorer, Tori took and extra half hours kip, a shower and a realxing swim at the base over another sweat-inducing climb.
We finshed the trip off with a group meal out back in Darwin. Free Food! (Ben's favourite price). We were given meal vouchers after the tour- food wasn't great but the beer was good, as was the live music and we've made plans to catch up with some friends from the tour when we get back. It seems that the more we travel the more we make plans to travel- we have weekend breaks booked across Europe now and all with free accomodation and good company.
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Next installment, out trip through the desert...
Hope you are all well. Miss everyone loads (it's going to be one hell of a xmas party season)
Ben & Tori- the explorers!
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