Australia, Kakadu: Fighting Flies with Fire on a Crocodile Hunt

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One of the main reasons why we had included Darwin in our Australian itinerary was to explore the mystical Kakadu National Park, located over 120 miles east of Darwin in the hot and humid northern end of the Northern Territory. The national park was a place every Australian knows because of its rich history, abundance of plants and animals, many of which were rare and unique to the area, and for the beautiful rainforest itself with its variety of different habitats.

Kakadu was a cultural landscape. The name "Kakadu" came from an Aboriginal floodplain language called Gagudju, which was one of the languages spoken in the northern section of the park at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although languages such as Gagudju, and another local one called Limilngan, are no longer regularly spoken, descendants of the language groups still live in the Kakadu region.

Kakadu National Park is one of the few World Heritage areas that have been listed for both their cultural and natural heritage. The park was established to protect one of the finest and most extensive collections of ancient rock art in the world, a reminder of Aboriginal people's long and continuing association with the area. The Aborigines are the oldest remaining culture in the world and learning more about them and their history was an exciting part of our trip, for Dan, at least.

The reason we said that learning about Aboriginal culture was exciting for Dan was not because Kyle didn't have the same desire to find out more about the ancient people who still inhabit Australia today, but because Dan went with Carl on a day trip to Kakadu National Park whilst Kyle stayed behind in Darwin to relax. Carl, Dan's friend from work who had been living in Australia for the past 2-1/2 years and who had met up with us during part of our "Land of Oz" travels in 2007, had rented a 4WD vehicle for his time in the Darwin area and he drove to the park with Dan eagerly sitting in the passenger seat taking in all of the sights.

There was one major drawback about visiting the wilderness of Australia and that was not because of the many poisonous and deadly animals that roam free in the land, but because of something much smaller... the fly. Flies were in abundance in the outback and Dan and Carl found that out whilst hiking through areas of Kakadu National Park. As soon as they stepped out of the car, whether to start walking along a trail or to take photos of the spectacular scenery, the little pests descended on them like they were the best thing that was ever presented to them. For some reason, most likely because of the moisture leaking from various parts of the face and body, the flies were really drawn to people; they continuously flew into ears, eyes, nostrils and mouths, and they also landed on beads of sweat running down their faces, not letting up for one moment.

For the first few seconds, Dan and Carl laughed about the persistence of the little buggers, but soon after it became extremely annoying. The guys were hounded non-stop and the only way to reduce the attacks was by picking up a couple of twigs, one each, using the ends covered in leaves to swat the flies away. During one of the short walks in the national park, Dan noticed a group of Germans who were wearing hats with a mesh face cover to keep the flies away from their faces, a good idea, but they did look rather silly. The overeager flies stayed with Dan and Carl until the very end of the day when they left the national park.

The first sight of the day pleasantly surprised Dan, who didn't really know what to expect in Kakadu National Park, since he hadn't really done any research on the area. Several enormous termite mounds, many of them much taller than humans, even Carl, who was well over 6 feet tall, stood in the national park. Dan had never seen anything like it before and was amazed at the sheer size of the termite metropolises. Carl pulled the car over so Dan could take some photos to prove just how tall they were; be sure to look at the photo album to see them.

After a brief stop to look at some termite mounds, the next stop was at Two Mile Hole, a large area of water surrounded by thick rainforest. To get to that section of the national park, Carl had to drive a few miles down a 4WD dirt track off the main road. There wasn't much in the way of wildlife there, just a few birds, but there were plenty of hungry mosquitoes waiting to drink some English blood. With the mosquitoes being so bad, the stop was a quick one before Dan and Carl made their way towards a uranium mine a little farther down the main road.

Tours for the mine were running much later in the day, so visiting one up close wasn't possible, but it was easy to view the absolutely enormous and hundreds of feet deep mine from a distance. There were large piles of yellow powder in the distance that Dan thought was uranium, and Carl was probably thinking to himself that he was taking away some form of radiation poisoning from his short jaunt to the Northern Territory. Moving quickly on from there, Carl drove the 4WD vehicle farther down the main road to Nourlangie.

At Nourlangie, there was a series of fascinating ancient Aboriginal rock paintings dating back thousands of years; Dan was amazed at the various pictures depicting kangaroos, hands and tribal men, all painted in various colours and in different poses. Near Nourlangie was Anbangbang Billabong, a beautiful wetlands area with many birds inhabiting the area; parts of the movie "Crocodile Dundee" were filmed there. Dan braved a short walk to Nawurlandja Viewpoint, which was extremely tough in the heat and humidity, and especially annoying with the harassment from flies. The view was well worth the effort and Dan showed Carl his photos when after he finished the walk, since Carl decided to skip the view and take refuge in the 4WD's air conditioning and fly-free zone.

Kakadu was one of the few places in Australia where there have been limited extinctions of plants or animals over the last 200 years. It was a stronghold for animals such as magpie geese, which were abundant throughout the national park. Around the beautiful billabong of Anbangbang, there were many other types of birds including parrots, cockatoos, ducks, storks, jabirus and hawks.

A sad sight during the trip around the national park was the number of dead animals littering the sides of the main road through the park. There were dead kangaroos, which had obviously been hit by passing cars, and a dead snake; those animal carcasses had been left on the road. Dan also spotted a dead bat and Carl noticed a large water buffalo that had died and had completely rotted away to the bone, leaving only a frame covered with its hide.

At the Bowali visitor centre, the opportunity to see two orphaned animals presented itself. The parents of the animals had died in road accidents and park rangers had rescued them from their dead mothers' pouches. First was a fairly young and very adorable brushtail possum. Second was a baby wallaby that rivalled the possum in cuteness. It was very sad to see the orphaned animals, but good to know that they had been given a chance at survival when passing motorists notified the park rangers. In addition to seeing those Australian marsupials up close, Dan and Carl also saw some wild kangaroos around the forested sections of the national park.

One of the main reasons tourists visit Kakadu National Park is to see crocodiles in the wild. Dan and Carl were really happy to spot a small group of baby crocodiles swimming to the surface of a river there. After crossing a small bridge, Carl pulled over and they both got out of the car to look for some of the large reptiles; that's when they saw the babies, which were floating near the surface, coming up for breaths after swimming down in the water for short periods of time. Making sure that they were not near the water's edge, in order to avoid an attack from the large mother croc, which was most likely lurking in the shallow, murky water somewhere nearby, Dan and Carl took some photos and watched the babies for a while. Later that afternoon, at Yellow River, a large crocodile sighting finally reached them and it was great to see one in the wild, even if it wasn't doing anything but lazily floating in the water.

With Kakadu being such a large and isolated national park, there weren't many easily accessible facilities such as petrol stations or cafes, to refuel both the 4WD vehicle and Dan and Carl's stomachs when they grew hungry. Sandwiches were the best solution for the hunger, and the afternoon's meal was ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard. They brought plenty of water that day to hydrate themselves, too. Even though they were well prepared, they had come across a cafe near the western entrance to the national park at the beginning of the day; there, they each had a coffee to take a quick break from driving before exploring the park for the day.

On the drive back to Darwin, Carl decided to take Old Jim Jim Road, a 4WD dirt track through some of the even more remote areas of Kakadu. The track was wide and in much better condition to drive along than Dan and Carl had thought. Throughout the drive, the park landscape changed interestingly from dense wooded areas to sections of sparsely populated trees to open grasslands. A large storm was moving into the area, so Carl started driving quickly along the road to get back to Darwin. It was then that the 4WD vehicle almost overturned.

As the car approached a sharp turn in the road, another vehicle was travelling towards Dan and Carl equally as fast as they were. Carl slammed on the brakes to ensure he had enough room to pass the oncoming car and the 4WD vehicle began to swerve on the loosely packed dirt road. When the car veered up the bank on its left side, panic was in the air as Dan felt the car beginning to tilt over to one side. He quickly grabbed the "Oh S***!" bar above his head and was very thankful that the vehicle didn't tip after all. It was a huge relief and Dan had to laugh with Carl about it after their hearts slowed down to a normal beat. When the other driver asked if they were okay, they both felt silly and said they were fine before continuing the drive back to Darwin.