Day 20 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters)

Day 20 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters)

10/8/2013

We camped late at night, but had time to book a sunrise crock cruise. The next morning we woke up very early and waited for a bus that took about 8 of us to the boats. It was still very dark and scary, as we knew that there are crocs everywhere.

What we saw from the boats was spectacular, the early fog slowly dissipated as the sun started to come out and the crocs all started appearing on the water surface.

trees in the fog

slowly the place is getting a bit of light

A lonely silouette emerging from the fog

There he is

It's a medium size croc, about 3-4 metres long. (big enough for me)

Get closer, if you dare...

Then we saw the birds, we did not expect such diversity and beauty. The birds were taking the spot over the crocs.

A bird of prey on the best hunting spot

The sun is coming out. Remember, there are hundreds of crocs in there...

A beautiful Kingfisher

Nice Kakadunian scenes

A sea eagle

A pelican

Sleeping birds. Too close to the water's edge. Croc's breakfast for sure...

And there he is waiting...

...and making eye contact...

Sometimes they are hard to see....

This bird is really funny. It lives at night mostly under water, then when the sun comes out, it stays on a tree like this, with the wings open to dry them.

Water lilies and their flowers

Not interested...

We ended up spending the rest of the day in Yellow Waters, we really liked the place and needed the rest.

We also booked the nigh time cruise, it started at 845PM. We didn't take any photos, but it was nice to navigate the same waters that we now knew, in the dark, the sounds were completely different. There was also an old aborigine lady on the boat telling us stories and aswering questions. Very interesting.

They did not use the stars for navigation, but for telling what time of the year it was, that way they knew where to go hunting.

Day 19 - Kakadu National Park

Day 19 - Kakadu National Park

9/8/2013

Today I prepared the bike for the trip. I installed 8 stainless steel marine hooks on it, so that now I can carry the bike in a completely different configuration. Before, when I was alone, I was carrying 2 bags outside of the boxes, one with the tent and the other with the mattress and sleeping bag, now I have an extra mattress and an extra sleeping bag, so I need a third bag. Additionally, now I cannot carry the bags on the rear seat, as my fiancee will be sitting there. The solution I came up with was to purchase 3 marine sturdy wet bags and install the hooks so I can attach 2 bags to the top of the panniers and another to the top of the rear box. This solution worked great, here is the final product. I also became very comfortable for the pillion as she now has a place to rest her arms.

I've heard all sort of comments about Kakadu; some told me not to bother, some that the best time to see it is just after the wet season. Anyway, I was too close to it not to give it a go. 

I have to say, the trip from Darwin to Kakadu is long an tedious, not much to see. I felt a bit dissapointed, it was also longer and hotter than I expected. Being this the first long trip for my fiancee, I tried to do as many rest stops as praticable, which made the trip even longer. The result was that it became dark and we were still about 150Km from Yellow Waters, our intended destination. We did the last 100 km at about 60kmh as we started to hear the 'jungle' awakening as soon as it got dark, I was expecting kangaroos, emus, buffalos, or even crocs to pop out in the middle of the road at any second.

During the trip we stopped at the Bark Hut Roadhouse. Very nice.

This is how they used to catch buffalos, the catcher would stand on this thing while the jeep was raging towards to bull. Not much EH&S awareness those days, I suppose.

There is something I do not understand. Maybe there is somebody out there that can explain this to me. At every National Park I keep hearing that the park and the resorts and everything else belongs to the 'traditional owners'. However, all the people working there are NOT aborigines. How does that work out? I would have expected that if it all belongs to them, that they would be in control. Am I missing anything?

We then reached Jabiru, where there is a hotel in the shape of a crocodile, however this can only be seen properly from the air.

See the croc shape on the photo, that's the hotel, we are now inside the head (reception)

A croc display inside the hotel

We left Jabiru very quickly as it was already dark and stil had many k's to Yellow Waters.

Day 18 - Darwin to Litchfield Park

Old note: Please accept my apologies, there are some technical issues with the 'compose' function of the blogger and I can't edit the text. Surely I must be doing something wrong. Tomorrow when I leave Kakadu, I will ring for some IT technical support. The mobile signal and internet here is horrendous.

8/8/2013 - Litchfield park

Here we are again. Finally ended up sorting the problem myself. Apparently Blogger does not support IE8 anymore, and what do you know? Windows XP does not support IE9. In other words, I need to upgrade to Windows 7. Bummer, that means that updating the blog while on this trip is going to be very difficult, as I have to rely of other people's laptops.

Anyway, here we go with the first day...

Today, we started the trip, this time is different, as I have company. I don't know how I did it, but I convinced my girlfriend to come with me for this second stage of the trip; from Darwin to Perth. I must have said something right, which comes as a complete surprise to me. Anyway, she is here and this will make the trip all more enjoyable.

The first day I picked up the bike, installed a few upgrades and we went to Litchfield National Park. On the way there, we stopped at Batchelor. Nice little town, luckily, we weren't blinking and so we didn't missed it. We saw an incredible sculpture there.

This castle is a sculpture created by one of the late residents of  Batchelor

We finally reached the entrance to the park.

We had plans to cover all the areas of the park that we could reach via sealed roads. There are a number of waterfalls, swimming holes, the magnetic termite mounds, etc.

We reached the magnetic termite mounds, these are incredible, in fact all termite mounds in the area are incredible, on the one hand you have the 'cathedral' mounds; these termites create gigantic mounds in the loose shape of a cathedral. Her is one of them.

Yes, I know! It doesn't reeeeaaaally look like a cathedral. You need to exercise your imagination.

There you go! a magnetic termite mound on the front and a 'cathedral' at the back. The magnetic one is over 2 metres high..

Magnetic mounds are apparently very special, there is only one type of termite that makes them like this. These mounds are flat, and they are always oriented from south to north. Many theories about why they do it like that, but nothing really plausible. I guess it just the way they like it!

Then we arrived at our first swimming hole and waterfall. We liked it so much that we ended up spending the rest of the day there and didn't see anything else in the park.

A nice walk to the falls and the rockhole. Recommended!

The walk is well maintained, with cute bridges over the creeks.

Finally the falls and the tourists, of course

We ended up seeing just one waterfall, I'd like to think that this one is the best of all the falls in Litchfield, if you know otherwise, please don't tell me!

Tomorrow to head for Kakadu.

Day 17 - Katherine to Darwin

NOTE: Please accept my apologies for having taken 2 days to put up this post. I returned in Sydney and I left the bike in Darwin, as it was planned. The second stage of this trip, Darwin to Perth will start on the 8^th of August.

This is the last day of the 1^st stage of this trip. I reach this level with a small degree of apprehension. It’s been a great experience, one that I will never forget. However, I get this feeling that I did it all too fast. There is so much to see and experience out there; I really had no idea.

On the one hand, the decision of which machine to use was a good one. I put a lot of emphasis on comfort and reliability. This proved to be correct. I have met other people on adventure bikes that gave them the opportunity to visit some remote areas on dirt roads, whereas I avoided dirt roads like the pest. What they told me is that in the beginning, they visited a lot of stuff that was on dirt roads. However, whenever they were back on the highways, there were in pain, as the long distances made their bikes a torture to ride.

I did not have that problem; I missed some things, not that many, but the rides on the highways, which were the bread and butter of this trip, were done in perfect comfort and style.

When I arrived to Katherine, I met Trev, who was camping just next to me. He is 79 years old and is living his dream, he bought the biggest tourer Beemer, that he could find (a K1600) and is riding all over Australia at his leisure, on this own, like me. He is my hero.

Here is Trev, with his trusty steed.

...and going on his way. I hope our paths cross again sometime, fellow traveller.

He told me some stories of his trip. He had a fall some time ago during a rainy and windy day, his bike did not want to make a bend and it spat him off. The bike ended upside down in a muddy ditch alongside the road. We are talking here a 500kg+ sitting upside-down in a hole. He thought he would have no chance of getting it out. Many cars stopped and then somebody said to him ‘No worries mate! I’ll just call a couple of mates and we’ll get you sorted in no time!’ He got on the phone and after a few minutes about 10 young farmers from the area came and got the bike out and up in no time.

This is something that I experienced firsthand and it surprised me no end. Coming from Europe and South America, I am used to people not stopping for anyone on the road. However, here in Australia people are so incredibly helpful and friendly. Before leaving for this trip I was worried that if something happened to me on the road, nobody will stop and help me, so I implemented a lot of mitigation strategies in case something like this happened to me and I am left out there on my own. I used to stop many times to take photos once something tickled my fancy, and there were many, many things that did that to on the way. Whenever I stopped, almost instantly somebody, sometimes even two cars will stop and ask me if I am ok, if I needed any help. It was just so reassuring! I learned to keep the camera very handy, just on my tank and as soon as I stopped, I would take my camera and keep it very visible, so that people will see that I was just taking photos and was not in any problem. Isn’t that incredible that you have to do that just to stop people from trying to help you? That’s the nature of the Australians; a nice bunch of people.

This is even more true here in the outback, if I remember right, it was John Flynn (the founder of the Royal Flying Doctors) who said something along the lines of how the huge distances of the Australian outback makes people be very friendly and helpful to each other.

In the morning, I visited the Katherine Hot Springs, I had a dip in one of them and the feeling is something out of this world, I do recommend trying this at least once you your lifetime.

The hot springs at Katherine





Then it was onto the road again, this time to my final destination for this leg of the trip, the capital city of Darwin.

On the way to Darwin, the Stuart Highway was a continuous stretch of repairing crews that had only 1 half of the road open at a time, so I kept having to stop and wait for long periods of time. As soon as I could I took the scenic route and avoided most of these stat and stops.

Constant stops due to road repairs on the Stuart Highway

Chose the 'roads less travelled', but more scenic routes

This is what I am talking about. No traffic, no stops, no road trains, a lot longer....

Gong on these routes gave me the opportunity to find other, unexpected discoveries, like humongous termite mounds, like nothing I've seen before.

Gigantic termite mounds

The road less travelled

By taking these roads you find places like this.

Just before the night broke, I arrived in Darwin and I booked into the Discovery Campground. Very expensive, the most expensive I have paid since I left Sydney, $45 for a small space for the night, whereas I was paying $10-$18 everywhere along the route. On top of that, it wasn’t really a well setup camping and it was the only one that I saw that locked the camp kitchen at 9PM. Very strange and restrictive. This is a camping where I will not return or recommend.

The next day, I had a full day to burn, so I did a lot of sightseeing and attended to the Dalai Lama conference at the Convention Centre. It was very interesting and it’s nice to hear such a wise man talking. I hope I learned something.

The Dalai Lama in Darwin. He's been in Oz 8 times, but this is his first time in Darwin, lucky me.

Next to the Convention Centre there is this ‘wave’ pool where there were a lot of people having fun. I guess this is a reflection of a city with beautiful beaches, but where you cannot relax on the sand or you might find yourself eaten by a ‘saltie’ (a salt water crocodile).

The wave pool next to the Darwin Convention Centre

I left the bike on storage until the 8 of August, when I plan to start with the second leg of the trip, Darwin to Perth, following the west coast of Australia.

Here is where I left the bike

I left Sydney with 12,000km’s on the clock. I am now at 19,000, so the first leg of the trip clocked at 7,000kms exactly.

7,000 kilometres on the first leg of the trip.

The trip so far

Will be back ont he 8 of August. See you then!

Day 16 - Renner Springs to Katherine

Today I took it easy. Got up late, after a cold night with rain, I needed the rest and I am not that much in a hurry anymore.

I had a look at the famous 'Renner Springs' It wasn't really much, I was led to believe that this place is worth a look, so I made a punch to get here. however, the night was terrible, as the camping grounds are just next to the highway, and the noise of the trucks kept waking me up. Not nice, especially when there are thousands of free miles just behind the road house. Why didn't they put the camping there? Beats me.

The 'spring' was just a puddle of dirty water where you can't swim. I should have stopped at the last camping grounds, about 45kms south of here, where the camping was away from the road.



The locals were very friendly though

Then on the way to Katherine, I found lots and lots of termite mounds. These things have been here for donkeys' years, who knows how many zillions are there. In fact we are at war with them, we keep destroying their mounds to make roads and they eat our houses.

I wonder what happen if they claimed the land, as they have been here for more than any human. While I was wondering that, I saw this and I stopped.

The first fella I met was very friendly, he wants to learn our ways and be like all of us. he just wants to fit in. Although he is very slow, he moves about a metre every years or so



I also met this one, he asked me 'Take me to your leader' I was wondering if this is Julia...

And what else would you find on the way, specifically in Larrimah? Well, the Pink Panther of course!

The Pink Panther is in Larrimah

The I found this at the Hi Way Inn. What do you do when you don't have the best beer? well, you can always have the biggest!

A collection of interesting drinks in this place

Waht did I say?

And the keep coming...

No they don't...

Then just about 27km's from Katherine (by the way, the locals read it ending as in 'fine') I found one of the best places so far, I really needed this place. I am talking about Mataranka. Thanks Craig for your suggestion, they are really the best.

This place has a small pool of thermal waters (31 degC) and the water is the cleanest you have ever seen, the water purs from the depths at millions of litres a day, and it comes at the temperature of the basin, which is about 50 to 100 metres down the earth.

Arrived at Elsey National Park, the location of the pool

informationa about the park

What it means is that if you encouter a croc, you should measure it's snout and if the ratio is 4:1, the it's ok, it just might bite you, but if the ratio is 2:4 then you are probably already dead. if this scares you, then you should have never left the big smoke to start with.

Arrived at Katherine, just before it got dark

Got greeted by the locals