Woodies on tour!: Kakadu National Park

Kakadu National Park

Jabiru

5 July 2015

After saying many farewells and being quite emotional we managed to get on our way on the Arnhem Highway to our next stop in Jabiru (name of a bird) where we had reserved a spot with our own en-suite. It was a very wide open Caravan Park called, Anbinik which is the name of a tree.

Just outside Jabiru town is the Ranger Uranium Mine, which produces more than 6% of the worlds uranium but it is due to close completely in 2021. It has been running down for quite some time as the number of uninhabited properties bares witness to this.

It was just lovely here but unfortunately Helen had complained of a very bad/strange throat. A look around the very small town later in the afternoon and then back to BBQ some food. We had very quiet neighbours and Helen did speak to them but didn’t get anywhere so she gave up, a lot different to where we have just left. After a not too good a night we were up early and decided to go off and meet the Ranger at Ubirr for the free walk and talk of the Rockart. This was really something, the Ranger was Indigenous one of the grandsons of one of the Traditional Owner (hope that makes sense?). He told the group some lovely stories and showed us the Rockart this lasted for nearly two hours. We did a short climb where we could view the awesome green land towards Arnhem Land it was magical.

Helen wanted to see Cahill’s crossing this is the Alligator River crossing where many Crocs are spotted by the many fishermen. We didn’t see any but there were lots of people fishing. Our next cultural experience would be a demonstration of local painting. It was at a NP campground not far for us to drive. The demonstration was done by another Indigenous man with some of his family, Rangers were here too handing out paint and brushes but, the locals showed us how they made their own brushes from reeds, he just pulled the plant out of the ground and made his own brush. Here in Kakadu, we discovered that the artwork was very different to other Indigenous artwork we had seen on the road, here they use straighter lines and not dots. They seemed to like painting their “Lightning Man” and the fish “Barramundi” We enjoyed this experience and we met some nice people. Helen had a very poor night, she was up coughing for hours and so not really happy to do much the next day. We stayed around the campground, Richard used the swimming pool to cool off! He also booked our flight over Kakadu for tomorrow at sunset. After another not so good night, Helen had an extra sleep. We did a short drive to the Bowali Cultural centre where we encountered two coach loads of people, who immediately raided the ice cream freezer!

All set a ready to go on our flight, very excited about it too. The little plane was a Cessna 172, very small and cosy. Helen sat in the back with Richard as co-pilot. That brings me to tell you about our pilot was called David from New Zealand, he learned to fly at Ardmore not far from where we lived! He was great and so knowledgeable about the area. Look at the pictures, it was just wonderful, we took off and flew towards the escarpment that is the beginning of Arnhem Land and over the Alligator River. We had a great flight! Our next day adventure took us to a lookout called Mirray it was quite a climb and once again very hot. At the top we had a large covered platform that shaded us from the sun, so we just sat and took in the views. We met some people from Perth but originally from Sheffield, we had a nice little chat. After the decent which was quite hard to do we went on to a place called Cooinda where there was a large Caravan Park with large swimming pool that anyone who was in the National Park could use. This is the area where we could have done the Yellow River cruise but we didn’t bother.

Friday saw us drive to another Rockart site called Nourlangie, we had missed the free Ranger talk and walk, but my goodness this place is just the best. Again the Rockart was remarkable! The walk around the area was approximately 2kms and in places stairways and viewing platforms had been erected. This is surely the most abundant example of Rockart in the country! If any of you reading this have the chance to visit Kakadu this is the place.