Wednesday
We woke to another beautiful day looking out into the canopy from our treetop bedroom. Another BBQ brekky before we packed up and left the Hideaway behind at around 9 am. We wanted to see one more nearby waterhole before leaving Litchfield, it was only a few minutes drive to the Cascades area of the park. We walked the 1.3 km walk in through the scrub and then aong the pretty creek to the Lower Cascades area, we had the place to ourselves ( if you don’t count the birds and dragonflies!)
We weren’t swimming here, just wanted to enjoy the serenity of the place for a little while before heading off on our drive to Kakadu National Park. It’s about 3 1/2 hours drive from Litchfield and I’d used the last of our bread and cold sausages to make us a picnic lunch to eat on the way. It was interesting to backtrack along the road we’d driven through in the dark a couple of days earlier. The shorter route from Darwin has recently been upgraded to remove the last remnants of the gravel.
I’ll be honest, the drive from Humpty Doo to Kakadu isn’t very interesting, miles and mles of low scrub, only broken in a couple of spots by creeks with “Crocodile Safety” signs nearby. Shortly after entering the park we stopped at a picnic area for our sandwiches – watched all the time at close quarters by a very hungry Raven.
When we were about 10km short of Jabiru ( the town centre of Kakadu where we were staying the night) Neil cleared his throat and said “We May Have a Problem”.. he’d been watching the petrol gauge and it was dipping down faster than he’d expected – he thought we might run dry before we reached the town. This required one of those moments many of us experience in a marriage when we have to decide between saying what we really think – “Gah! But I ASKED you if you needed to fill up as we left Litchfield!!!!” or keeping our mouths shut. I kept my mouth shut. 🙂 And as it turned out all was well, we made it to the petrol station with a few drops to spare in the tank. I’ll just add this incident to the one when we nearly ran dry in the far south of remote desert Texas in similar circumstances… not that I’m keeping count of these things or anything!
When planning this trip we had to decide where to allocate the time Neil could afford to be away from work. With only 2 weeks to work with for the whole trip it meant that our time in the Top End would be limited to a “taste” of the National Parks. We only hired a Corolla instead of a 4WD so that automatically ruled out some of the more remote watefalls and swimming holes, however we hoped to see at least some of the icons in the parks.
I’d booked us into the “iconic” Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel, “iconic” because it’s shaped like a crocodile.
The main reception area o the hotel is within the head of the “crocodile”, you can see his “eyes” and jaws in this pic.
Unfortunately that’s all that’s “iconic” about it, we have very rarely stayed in a hotel in a major tourist area that has been so badly left to run down. I’d guess it hadn’t had any renovations since the 1980s and the furniture, carpets and bathrooms are damaged and dingy and very very much in need of renovation. However, the staff are so very anxious to please, and doing their hardest to try to make up for the surroundings and the aircon was nice and cold! We chilled for an hour before setting off for the 40 minute drive down the road to Cooinda, where we were booked on the Sunset yellow Water Bilabong cruise. The cruise was absolutely wonderful. We had to catch a minibus from the carpark to the Billabong, at this time of year, just after the wet season you can’t drive down to the billabong yourself. We were directed onto the boat and sat back while our skipper/guide Lily took us on a peaceful cruise trough the Billabong and up the Alligator river. The water lilies carpeted great swathes of the water and there were so many birds – egrets on the lily pads and banks, whistling kites, magpie geese and Asutralian Sea eagles sweeping through the sky and settling into their nests in the trees lining the banks.
Many years ago we had taken a crocodile cruise on the Daintree river in far north Queensland and had seen very few crocs, so I didn’t have high expectations here. However, the crocs around here are a lot more outgoing , we saw several swimming along the river and lurking near the banks. One was even just sitting up on the bank with his mouth wide open just hoping some critter would come along and walk into it! Lily said they’re very lazy hunters 🙂
The sun slowly dipped down over the water and the cameras in the boat went crazy.
Another drive in the dark back to the hotel and we quickly changed before heading for the bar to enjoy a drink and dinner. As we walked through the gardens and pool area within the “belly” of the crocodile, we walked very fast as all the trees in the space had been invaded by HUGE swarms of white cockatoos.
I’ve been compaining this summer about a small mob of these pests who have been sitting in our back yard gum tree and doing what roosting birds do all over my pavers every morning and night – I’ve been waging war on them with a high pressure hose. Well, after seeing the infestation here at the hotel I won’t complain again. We had never seen (or heard!) so many cockatoos. It was very busy in the restaurant and the staff were really earning their keep, we shared pork buns for entree and followed up with a really delicious meal of lemon myrtle battered Barramundi & chips. Yumm!
Back in the room we had one more hiccup, the fan light in the middle of the ceiling refused to turn off. So we had to call a long-suffering chap down from reception to reset the room wiring so that we could get to sleep. Neil said he was pretty sure the guy had had to come and do the same thing for the people next door a short time before us – He looked like a man who’d had it with owners who clearly aren’t interested in putting money into the place.
Thursday
The Tour Bus people had almost finished their breakfast by the time we got to the restaurant this morning. I’d slept well despite waking at dawn when the cockatoos all took flights fom the roosts with a cacophony of screaching. As we walked thorugh the pool area we could see the mess the area was in, there was bird droppings and feathers everywhere. The little man made stream was a bog, clearly noone keeping it clean of algae etc Fortunately they do make an effort to keep the pool area clean.
This morning before heading to Darwin we wanted to visit the Nourlangie area which has a lookout and a meandering walk that takes you through some wonderful rock art done by the traditional owners over the last 6000 years. From the lookout you look out across the floodplain to the Arnhem escarpement.
There were several natural rock shelters along the path with beautiful paintings.
After only a tiny taste of Kakadu we had to leave and drove on back towards Darwin. maybe someday we’ll come back to see some more of the sights, however I’m glad we gave 2 nights to Litchfield and one night here. We had another cruise tour to look forwrd to this morning, the”Original Adelaide River Jumping Crocodile Cruise”. Friends of ours had done this and highly recommended it. After seeing several crocs last night I had higher expectations of this one. We arrived early with plenty of time to relax on their sheltered wharf cafe and have some lunch first.
At 1pm about 16 of us filed into the boat, low to the water just like the ones last night, and our driver/guide Connie gave us the safety talk. It was simple – “Don’t put any body parts over the edge of the boat…seriously!” The crocs along this river were accustomed to jumping up to grab the tasty chops that were dangled over the side of the boat, and they weren’t fussed about taking a human hand or head instead of a lamb chop if it was offered!
We cruised up the very muddy waters of the river and the crocs came out in force. It wasn’t all just for thrills either, Connie gave us anexcellent talk about the habitat and behaviour of the Adelaide river crocs and she clearly had a great fondness for them. They’re territorial animals and she could recognise them as each one approached the boat.
She knew about the battles that had taken place between the local dominant “Big Fellas” and the rogue males, as well as the various females. Some were quite small and a couple of the big boys like “Aggro” and “Nifty” were close to 5 meters long. It was amazing ( and somewhat terrifying!) to see these monsters up so close.
Towards the end of the cruise Connie started whistling and threw out bird feed pellets which drew a flock of whistling kites in, the swooped around the boat on enjoyed the free feed.
As we left I had , naturally, to take the classic shot at the Big Jumping Crocodile statue, before we set our back to the bush and headed for the bright lights of Darwin. That’s the next post…
