Day 22 - Katherine Gorge

Day 22 - Katherine Gorge

12/8/2013

Today we (finally) cruised the Katherine Gorge. It was gorgeous, the tranquility and stunning change in scenery was a welcomed surprise. The whole trip from Katherine to here, all 30kms were pretty much a caked desert. However, as soon as we reached this area, it became green and teeming with animals.

The Gorge is basically a river that over millennia carved a deep channel through erosion. In other words, erosion was what caused the beauty of this place. so when somebody tells you to avoid erosion here or there, just remember this place.

Does this photo need a description?

A reminder that here there could be 'salties' (salt water crocs), too.

Normally the type of crocs in this are are the freshwater ones, they are not dangerous and are protected. The beaches are their nesting areas.

This one is funny, they put a plastic ball hanging from a tree, the crocs bite it and leave teeth in there, then the ranges can get it remove the missing teeth and then determine what age the crocs int he are are. If the ball is missing, they know that there must be a saltie nearby.

A couple having fun together

Finally got the setting for landscape on this very complicated camera.

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Where the boats moor, from here there is a 400m walk to the next gorge, where there is another boat waiting

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A nice chair...ah, the bird is also nice.

This is some type of Kookaburra, but quite different and more colourful than the ones found in Sydney

Day 21 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters) and trip to Katherine

Day 21 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters) and trip to Katherine

11/8/2013

What a wonderful place, every day we were in this camping (Cooinda), we had free buffet breakfast. I am not sure if it was actually included in the price of the camping, but I dared not ask. By the way, do you know the story about the man that wanted to smoke in a cinema?

It goes like this...

A man gets into a cinema and when he was being shown to his seat by the usher, he asked if he could smoke. The usher said a emphatic 'Of course not!'; then the man asked 'How come those 2 over there are smoking then?; and the usher replied 'that's because they didn't ask'.

Something to learn here? Maybe. Just in case I didn't ask. I just followed the crowd. maybe everybody was wrong, if so, I am happy to be wrong to and suffer the consequences of getting a free buffet breakfast.

Anyway, we camped near the water's edge. Have a look at the sign that we had next to the tent. Was it safe to be there? I think so, just don't tell my Mother where I was.

The sign next to the tent. Would have camped in there? We like living on the edge!

Another sign, we like the bottom drawing of the croc eating a person.

The 'free' buffet

The local beauties near the pool waterfall.

After the obligatory breakfast we went to visit Nuralgie, an aborigine historic area nearby.

This is a cave where the aborigines used to live in this not so long ago. I couldn't stop thinking that this way of living is basically pre-historic. There is no evidence of any of the basic techologies that denote progress, like building a shelter, or even modifying a natural one, carving, metalurgy, farming, etc.



The paintings on the walls depict superstition and hunting skills, all their culture was based on hunter/gathering, no attempt was made to farm animals or working the land.

We then visited the Cultural Centre near yellow Waters. We were astonished to learn a few things there. One of the things that amazed us the most was how racist the aborigines were. apparently their tribes had different shades of skin colour, they had rules that certain colours can only marry certain other colours, any other mixing was forbidden.

The other thing that was interesting to learn was that they had different spears for different functions, for example there was a spear for hunting and another one for war. So to know the intention of an aborigine that is approaching you with a spear, all you need to do is look at the tip of the spear he is carrying, if it is the one for war, then start running or shooting; if it is one for hunting, then you have nothing to worry about.



They split the year in 6 seasons, and organised hunting based on that.



The toilets, we found funny how they depict women...

...and men

Here are the different type of spears

here are samples, the tip indicate the function of the spear

This indicates who can marry whom

These wheels (geared) indicate what marriages are acceptable and which ones are not, all based on the skin colour.

We saw this on many trees. The leaves are glued all together forming a type of cocoon. Does anyone know what this is? We didn't dare opening one to have a look.

The road out of Kakadu, nothing special, just the same landscape for hundreds of kilometers on end

And then we reached the Stuart Highway, and the massive Road Trains.

On the road we saw this truck filming for Whereis, we will need toc check, I think we were photographed on the road, too.

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.