Week 26, Monday 6 – Sunday 12 September 2010

KakaDO!

Time for a change of author.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

This week's blog is brought to you by me,  Adam D'Andreti. I had the pleasure of spending a week in Priscilla with Claire and Jen as we toured Kakadu National Park which is in the 20 million odd square kilometres between Darwin and Arnhem Land. I was lucky enough to get the call up because I kept Claire entertained during her last few months at Mallesons with witty repartee and incisive social commentary and happened to have September off between jobs. Well, at least the last part is true.

Anyway.

Claire and Jen had been in Darwin for a couple of days by the time I arrived so they were already getting used to the steamy weather (it had dumped with rain the day prior to my arrival to such an extent that Monday's NT News (Darwin's answer to the Daily Telegraph and the News of the World rolled into one) was calling it the earliest start to the wet season since whenever.)
 
Luckily by the time I rolled in the sky had cleared and apart from some relatively mild humidity (98.5% by 9am) things were shaping up well. I got some early tastes of Claire and Jen's English heritage ("We aren't seriously going to do anything today are we, the weather is oppressively hot and absolutely beastly!") but luckily we were able to overcome those congenital character flaws to get ourselves to the servo to have the brakes of Priscilla fixed and for me to gain a valuable opportunity to pick up a $6 camping chair from Bunnings Warehouse (I can hear C and J singing the theme song now (if you have been living under a pleasant rock and have no clue what I am talking about, you can hear the tune at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbDUOTASJvQ&p=010F50C5D72C7804&playnext=1&index=39)). That done, we were all set to tackle Kakadu - or Kakadon't as all the locals kept telling us. A total misnomer - the park is excellent (in spite of the apparently "outrageous" $25 cover charge).
 
Given the time of day, we thought it was best to spend another night in Darwin. After all, we still hadn't caught up with Keith and Pauline Beaty, a fantastic couple who live in Darwin that Claire and Jen had met someplace whose name I can't now recall (Halls Creek?) [William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track, Ed], but which sounded inhospitable - in a "40 flies are trying to enter my mouth at once" kind of way.

So after an impromptu walking tour around the NT government district and harbour we found ourselves whisked away by Keith and Pauline in (what Claire reliably informs me was) a totally dominant 4WD, a toyota landcruiser, [Ed - dominant, yet subservient still to the mighty Nissan Patrol, obviously] to their local. The local turned out to be a sailing club at Fannie Bay (yes, that name is for real) which was perfect in every respect (beautiful location and sunset viewing,


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

and nicely chilled beer glasses, a Top End standard) save that like every other place in Darwin I needed to take off my hat. It struck me as somewhat ridiculous that in the most sun-affected part of the country you are frequently asked to remove your hat when entering public bars which inevitably are full of large sun-drenched beer gardens. Go figure.  Fast forward a significant number of drinks, we found ourselves at one of the finer drinking holes Darwin has to offer - The Tap - where their speciality is cocktails in "fish bowls". Seriously. For $20 (and half that price again in glass deposit) you could get yourself a glass bigger than the average human head full of lurid coloured cocktails. We took the beer. 
 
Good thing we did too as Claire and Jen (now seasoned soft-drinkers due to their unofficial "2 tinnys of beer a day" limit) claimed to have the worst hangovers in recorded history the day after (Jen even suggesting she still felt the effects of it at 5.30pm...). I think there is a lesson in cost-saving for all of us here.
 
Thankfully, these not insignificant health issues didn't prevent us from heading out to Kakadu. But before we even reached the park itself there were some good times to be had.
 
In particular, a crocodile tour on the Adelaide River. Apparently there's only 3 guys in the whole of the Kakadu National Park who have been licensed by the government to "interfere with protected species". Having seen the actual licence (it was hanging on the wall of the tour guide's hut) I can confirm that is precisely what the government had mandated the guide to do. Personally, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather less do with a salt water crocodile than "interfere" with it (to my mind interfering with animals just elicits all sorts of uncomfortable images than merely throwing slabs of buffalo meat into the water, which is what it turned out to be). I digress. So we pile into this little glorified tinny of a boat and are told in no uncertain terms to keep all body parts within the confines of the boat lest a croc find our limbs to be a better offering than the buffalo meat. Judging by what we saw, this was a fair warning.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

They are truly amazing animals salt water crocs - apparently only 2% of eggs laid by female crocs end up surviving - through a mixture of stupidity (crocodiles have brains about the size of a golf ball and they are known to lay their eggs in sand which becomes overcome with wet season water within days) and bad luck (even though they're tough, baby crocs can sometimes fall victim to all sorts of other predators, including other crocodiles - apparently the males like to eat the young to avoid future competitors. Talk about forward planning). [Sounds rather like a large commercial law firm, Ed] They are probably the most pervasive image from the park itself - we sure saw a lot of them and there are signs up all over the place warning us about them (basically, ever since a poor German girl was eaten by one back in 2002, the government has whacked up warning signs on all waterways and waterholes near walking tracks making it very difficult to know where it is still safe to swim and where it isn't. In truth, no one really knows, so as soon as there is a bit of water in the park, making travel relatively easy for crocs, you probably just need to assume they could be anywhere). My favourite fact about salt water crocs is that in the local Aboriginal language, salt water croc is referred to by the name "ginga" - which just goes to prove that everyone hates a ginga.
 
We saw some crocs later on in the trip at the river crossing into Arnhem land too - there were about 3 just laying in the middle of the crossing - the cars beeped them to get them out of the way. Hilarious.

[Ed - one of the funniest quips I think I've heard from our fellow European travellers as we were discussing what on earth the croc below was doing with its front paws (do crocs have paws?!) was the guy next to us suggesting that it "had just had its French manicure"!]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]
 
Once we got into the park itself, we checked out the sunset at Ubirr - which was pretty special


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

and then spent the night fighting off crowds of mosquitoes at the Merl Campground which backed onto a flood plain. You know that buzzing in your ear you normally get at 3am when there's a mozzie in your room - imagine that noise amplified a 1000 times over and lasting all night, no matter where you walked. Crazy stuff. Personally, I think Claire and Jen were just conspiring to give me a "true" camping experience...though I suspect they got more than they bargained for with that campground..

[Ed: you forgot to mention you baked your first damper bread!]



Mosquitoes having had their way with us, we fortified ourselves with some breakfast pancakes (once a treat, these have now apparently become standard fare for Claire and Jen at brekky) and then we ventured out to check out Aboriginal rock art at Ubirr and Nourlangie.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

This was definitely the most detailed aboriginal art I'd ever seen though it transpires that some of it was comparatively recent in origin having been added by an Aboriginal elder in the 50s before Kakadu was heritage listed. Seems like the elder decided that some of the stories and teachings in his head needed to be preserved and so he went about doing that. The thing I love about the art is that it is basically meaningless unless you know the story it is meant to depict (the aboriginals used the art primarily as a teaching/propaganda tool). This is fine in theory but the problem is that there is a very limited western (as in white Australian) knowledge of what those stories are. We went on these great guided tours run by the Kakadu Park Rangers where they talked about how we came to know what the pictures meant and frankly, there's not a lot of knowledge there. This is totally unsurprising when you consider one anecdote that a ranger relayed. One of the most important elders from the region where Nourlangie Rock is located was about to die. He had a grown up son in his 40s with whom the elder had deliberately refrained from sharing all his stories for some unknown reason. Talk about rejection. Anyway, before he died, the elder sat down with some (white) researchers and recorded very basic info on tape. Great stuff. Not sure how the son would have taken it...

[Ed: on the way out of Nourlangie, Adam and I sprinted into a wetland area to see the Nourlangie escarpment from a distance which was lovely.]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

That evening, I finally stepped up to the plate (so to speak) and prepared dinner for the girls. I was slightly intimidated by the chicken fajitas Jen had done the night before and so it was steaks and potatoes on the bbq for us. Which I proceeded to under-cook, in what was to become an all too frequent masterclass in cooking ineptitude.

Not to worry, we enjoyed a pleasant night under the stars in Cooinda listening to the soothing sounds of a drunk tour leader a few tents away drinking well into the night with one or two (we suspect) female members of his group. I'd never seen Claire and Jen so ropeable the next morning for our 6.00am start for the Yellow Water Billabong cruise. If they'd have had time for their usual early morning cup of nescafe [Its Mocccona! Ed, Jen], I reckon they'd both have been needing doubles. Anyway, the foul mouthed bogan was quickly forgotten as we spent a couple of hours cruising the billabong looking at loads of wildlife. More crocs, some egrets, kingfishers, sea eagles, darter-birds and my favourite, the ballsy fishermen, in a tinny, standing up trying to catch some barramundi whilst being stalked at a distance of 4 metres by a massive croc. Loved it.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

[Ed: sorry, we went a bit crazy with the long lens on the Yellow Waters trip!]

Horses in the mist


Brolgas (try as we would, they wouldn't dance for us)


Darter bird drying its wings


Lillies


Jabiru


Anyone for fishing?


Another croc


Another croc!


Priscilla got to dust off her 4WD boots later in the day as we checked out the Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls - both of which were only accessible via a sandy track. It was pretty awesome. You spend the whole time being jolted up and down as the car bounces along the track - sort of like sitting on a waterbed being jumped on by a sumo wrestler. Priscilla took it all in her stride though and delivered us to the two sets of falls which are at the end of some amazing gorges. Even though one of the falls was dry and the other close to it, we were still able to get a sense of how immense they must be at their peak. Finally we got to swim at Jim Jim and the experience of having fish peck at your feet was pretty odd (and on one level sort of disconcerting as it's hard not to spend the entire time wondering what else is in the water!). Turns out that in addition to human skin, those fish quite like Coles Chocolate Rolls with Cream. Not sure how those made it into the water...


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

The rest of the week comprised a waterhole tour of Kakadu (and a little bit at Litchfield, where Claire and Jen had been the week before). We started out at Maguk Waterhole where we'd camped the night before and then on to Gunlom Falls. It turns out that infinity pools have been around for ages - check out the pic of Claire from Gunlom Falls.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]



Gunlom was probably my highlight; not just because of the amazing views from the pools on top of the falls but also for the amazing rendition of the Priscilla Queen of the Desert Soundtrack that the girls provided when leaving it. 
 
Our week ended at Litchfield National Park, south of Darwin where we stayed at the Buley Rockpools. These are a series of pools; each of which is lower than the one before it, so there is a strong flow of water running through the pools. We camped about 150m away from the pools, which was quite a stroke of luck I think, since Claire and Jen were both adamant that on a Friday night these pools would be the place to be for those in Darwin. Luckily for us this turned out not to be the case and apart from some crusty European backpackers and some drink driving locals clad in your standard Australian flag board shorts and wife beater singlet, all was quiet. Finishing the week off with a big hunk of pork roasted in the camp stove was pretty magic - I knew then that I was in the presence of camping greatness! Thanks Claire and Jen and good luck with the rest of your travels. See you at Longrain in December!

PS In between all of the above, Claire and Jen managed to create a short film to send to their mate back home, Harn Crumbly, who was getting married. And yes, that's her new married name. Great isn't it! See the video here: 




[Ed - Thanks Adam, it was great to have you along for a week, and lovely to have someone write one of our blogs for us!! Hope you enjoyed KakaDO as much as we did!
Claire, of Jen and Claire fame]