Kakadu Day 1

Photos

We were up very early. We were downstairs and checked out and our rolling duffels stored by 6am. We went to the included breakfast buffet and made some sandwiches and grabbed an apple for breakfast later. I had a yogurt and coffee in the room earlier. The bus was a bit late. There were several of us out there waiting so we didn't get too worried. Also knowing how AAT Kings drives around to a lot of hotels, we know it is easy for them to be late or early. They came around before long. We were in the middle of the pickups I guess. He took us to a central location where all the one day tour people got off our bus and moved to another while the 2 day people came over to our bus. As the sun rose and we drove out of Darwin, we had our sandwiches. On the bus ride, I was looking down the aisle out the front window and saw a dingo and a wallaby.

We are on AAT Kings 2 Day  Kakadu & East Alligator River (DK40S).  We had a 15 minute comfort stop in the morning at Corroboree Park. We got to Kakadu in the late morning. Our first stop was the Jabiru Airport for the 3 people who paid an extra $250pp for optional fixed flight seeing. They all liked it and saw 2 waterfalls. Our next stop was a 20 minute visit to Warradjan Cultural Center. It was well done but little more than a toilet stop for us. Our last stop before lunch was a cruise on Yellow Water Billabong. This was the highlight of the day even though the weather finally broke from overcast to rain. We saw a lot of birds including white corellas, jabirus, whistling kites, magpie geese, and a green bee eater. We probably saw more species than that but it is what I can remember. Jabiru is a stork and the town where we are spending the night is named for it. In addition to birds, we saw at least 7 salt water crocodiles. We watched one sitting in a snag in a 2 river confluence catching fish flowing through and chomping them one after another. It was like a train wreck. It was disturbing but you couldn't look away.

Lunch was at Gagudju Lodge Cooinda where we had earlier met up with the flying option people and where we got transferred to smaller high-clearance 4WD truck/buses to get through water to the dry season landing. The boat driver explained that the dry had arrived early here and this morning was the first time they couldn't get through to their usual landing spot. The water was still over the roads too deep at the dry season landing to allow our bus through. We have been told that high water over another road will require a change of itinerary tomorrow as well. We couldn't clearly hear today's driver over the intercom or understand him, but it sounds like we will miss Ubirr rock art and another river cruise in Kakadu. We thought we heard him say there will be a 4km walk between 8am and 10am, something else, lunch, drive back towards Darwin and take a Jumping Croc cruise before we get back to town. I really hope that we misheard, but we are on the bus tour and we're going where they're going like or not. Lunch was a limited cold buffet with tea, coffee or water. It was food.

After lunch we drove to Nourlangie. This was the 2nd best part of the day. It stopped raining just long enough for our short-version walk. Our boat guide told us today was unseasonably cool. But it was still warm and humid to us. It is interesting to us that the Aboriginal art of this region looks like the rock art we saw. Lots of lines, but pictures of things in nature. In Uluru, there was a kind of iconography, symbols representing things, not the things themselves. In Uluru, it was true that the iconography was represented in both the rock art and contemporary art. While they use a lot of lines, they were not the straight lines seen Top End and they use a lot of dots not seen here. We worked up a serious sweat and were plagued again by the flies. They have mosquitos around here as well, which we  had not seen before today. Our tour packing advice did not mention the need to bring bug repellant. We used my last 2 DEET wipes today and I left the little spray bottle of DEET in my big bag back in Darwin. We'll hope we don't need repellent tomorrow. UPDATE: I am back to update this section. It turns out our guide yesterday did not give full disclosure and a different guide today told us the whole story on Kakadu's rock art. It seems that almost all the rock art you can view in Kakadu is modern art. The work we saw yesterday was almost all done by Barramundi Charlie who died in 1965. I think this explains a lot about the contemporary look of it and the similarity with the art being produced and sold there today.

After that we reloaded the bus and drove directly to our hotel first. We are at the Mercure Crocodile Hotel. This place is a trip. It is built to look like a giant crocodile. After dark, the yellow eyes glow red. It is a nice place in the middle of nowhere. The other hotel is a half hour away, the Aurora. There is not much here in this little town built to support the Ranger Uranium Mine. We had hoped to avoid the hotel restaurant and walked to the Supermarket next door and bought breakfast for tomorrow. But we stopped at another rotisserie chicken. I think mainly because we couldn't finish the half chicken we bought yesterday and they only had whole chickens here. We walked back to put our purchases in the fridge. We checked a map and online for the sports club that the driver recommended if we didn't want the hotel restaurant or we couldn't get a reservation. While we were doing that it started pouring rain. I read Clay the hotel directory's list of room service menu items and prices that you could go pick up from the restaurant without a reservation. He decided to make a reservation. We ate there at 6pm. It was no more expensive than Darwin or Adelaide. Clay had fish & chips and I had a steak. It was fine. It was expensive just not any more so than some other places we've been.

Clay says he will get photos up and linked tomorrow night. Sorry. You'll have to check back. Tomorrow night in Darwin is the end of our The Territory Complete tour through Great Southern Rail. The next day we start our long string of flights to get back home. We will fly from Darwin to Brisbane the day after tomorrow. The next day we'll fly to LAX where we'll arrive before we've left! The next day we'll tour the Getty Mansion and that evening take the final flight back to RDU. We should be home late on May 1. It will be good to be home!

Photos