Friday, November 28, 2008

Kakadu National park - NT - Australia

























So, I have just returned from a two day tour of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia.
After heading off at the crack of dawn from Darwin we met up with our tour boat that took us on a two hour wildlife cruise in the Mary River. Caught some glimpses of fresh and salt water crocs but due to the heat and the fact that these creatures can remain under the water for up to five hours that was the extent of our croc sighting. However, the billabong was amazing with such rich wildlife. We sighted some sea eagles, jabiru, pigeon geese just to name a few of the local birds.
This is a such an interesting place that has such dynamic changes with the season as in a couple of months time we would not be able to drive into many of the places we visited as it is one giant flood plain.
After leaving the Mary River the next stop was Ubirr- which can only be described as AMAZING it is a natural art gallery show casing Aboriginal Art dating from 2000 to 20,000 years. It is a great example of how art has evolved over many years and how people without a written language created a lasting document. In the middle of it all we had a great tropical storm, the heavens went black, the thunder started to rumble and the lightening was crashing all around the 4WD -spectacular. After camping out at Cooinda which involved a beauitiful didge sessions by our tour guide over some beers followed by a late evening dip in the pool. At night in the permant tent sights it probably go to a nice overnight low of about 30 degrees and very high humidity I was in a very special mood the next morning and in drastic need of a coffee :) We headed off to Gunlorn as the twin falls and jim jim falls were closed due to the storm and flooding. On the way back to the road the brakes were slammed on and our tour guides Katie and J leaped out of the 4WD in pursuit of a frilled lizard and it gave us a spectacular show of its frills. We headed to a quiet spot called Moulion where we yet again swam in stunning scenery with amazing waterfalls, did some boulding around the splash pool before jumping into the 4WD for the long trip back to Darwin. On the way back we stopped to learn about the termite mounds and to sample some local tucker - termites taste like cracked pepper!!!

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