Kakadu

Kakadu...sometimes cynically referred to as Kakadon't... We had many discussions on whether this was a deserved title and why perhaps it had even been coined in the first place. The answer is purely guesswork but is perhaps due to the difference between the popular images of Kakadu in " The Wet " ( you know the ones....photos of a small dinghy drifting slowly through the wetlands surrounded by masses of jabirus, brolgas and jacanas picking their way gingerly across giant pink lilies; all while being surrepticiously watched by crocodiles ) and the reality of Kakadu in " the Dry ".

The fact is ( as I see it ) that if you had your heart set on seeing a magnificent torrent of water tumbling 215m over Jim Jim Falls ( as seen on postcards ) and had decided that a swim in nearby Twin Falls would complete your visit to Kakadu then you would be well justified in calling it Kakadon't. Jim Jim Falls was dry and Twin Falls was closed to swimming due to a slick of sunscreen affecting the ecological balance.To top it off you would have just spent an hour in the car being jolted over the gravel road and another hour scrambling in the hot sun over rocks to not even be rewarded with a swim at the end of it!!

Luckily for us, we had asked around and discovered those two destinations were really best earlier in the season and in the case of Jim Jim Falls ( as indeed much of Kakadu ) is best seen from the air. We also heard from a ranger that the best parts of Kakadu are not even seen by the public; a point I can well imagine.
What we did manage to see, however, was truly awesome! ( and well worth the visit )

To start at the beginning; Jane and Neil met us at Yellow Water where Neil launched the dinghy and promptly gave Ben lessons on manning the boat. There was only one nerve-wracking moment when Ben had cut the motor to clear it of weed and was trying to restart it when a croc slid into the water and was heading in our direction... It was just like one of those scary movies when someone's trying to start the car and can't get the key in the ignition...We then spent a peaceful couple of hours cruising the billabong ( an offshoot of the South Alligator River ) spotting crocs and birds, including two jabiru, a night heron, a sea eagle and a couple of jacanas. At sunset, the sky was covered with hundreds of magpie geese returning to the billabong to settle for the night and the sky turned incredible shades of pink, orange and purple.

The next day we went to a waterhole at Maguk. That in itself was lovely but then we walked up to the top of the falls where we swam for hours exploring an interconnected series of bowl-shaped swimming holes carved out of sandstone over thousands of years.The funniest, springiest, tiny little brown frogs aptly called " lightning frogs " live all over these rocks and have developed the ability to actually jump on water!! Of course it became Ben's aim to catch one...a task he eventually mastered...
Having farewelled Jane and Neil, we then backtracked to a couple of sites well-known for the aboriginal rock art. The first was Nourlangie and the second was Ubirr. Anyone who has been to Ubirr will agree that the view over the floodplains and towards the escarpment is just as magical as witnessing the 22000 year old artwork.

Cahill'sCrossing ( well-known for the mullet-catching crocodiles ) is near Ubirr but despite going there three times in one day, I failed to see this spectacle. I did however see plenty of crocodiles and also crazy people fishing quite close to where the crocs lay watching and waiting...
We spent our last day at Gunlom, similar in some ways to Maguk in that there was a big waterhole at the bottom and a series of waterfalls and waterholes at the top of a hilly climb.
To sum up...in Ben's words...we think it should be renamed Kakabloodydefinitely...