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.