Kakadu - Photos

Kakadu

How sad it is to have left Darwin, what a truly wonderful 2 weeks we have had. To top it off we had a great dinner of roast duckling with veges, first time we have had duck since we sold the restaurant, it was followed by waffles with mango and ice cream and all was enjoyed by a couple of bottles of fine wine.

From Darwin we set off for Kakadu, we drove into a strong headwind and found driving difficult, Tony felt that the tyres were a bit hard, he had put air in them at a service station before we left, I thought that maybe their guage was out and sure enough when he checked them one tyre had 52lb of air, no wonder it felt as if it was all over the road.

We continued along the Arnhem Highway till we got to Merle camp ground, quite a nice place but a bit difficult for big vans to manouvre into. We went for the drive to Ubirr, walked along the walkways and looked at all the rock art then climbed the steep rocky climb to a huge rock where large groups of spectators had gathered to watch the sunset. We had a 360 degree view of the surrounds, rocks on one side wetlands on the other.
Sunday saw us leave camp and head down to Cooinda, we stopped at the Bowali Information Centre, well worth the visit. From there to our camp site at Cooinda, lovely camp area though tonight they have lit the bush behind and the area is full of smoke. We decided to do a tour which was a bit different from the norm, a Bush Tucker Tour we left at 1pm and returned at 8pm. What a great day we had, we picked up Patsy our Aboriginal guide and along with Shaun and Greg our guides we set off for a day of learning. When we had our Restaurant in Brisbane we did quite a bit of cooking with different kinds of bush foods, so it was interesting to see it done as it has for thousands of years. We tried Kakadu Plums, figs, (yum ) crushed green ants (good for headaches, has a lemon flavour) stem of the water lily ( tastes like celery) is also used as a drinking straw, we dug up yams, had dehydrated banana. We pulled up beside a billabong, Shaun, Greg and Patsy got about cooking dinner, Baramundi and Buffalo in paperbark, damper put straight into the coals, yam done the same, billy tea . Patsy showed us how to make the leaves of the palm that we had collected earlier into string and showed us a basket that she had made. As we sat eating our feast the sun was going down into a magnificent sunset over a smoky sky and listened to the magpie geese make their way back to their nests in the wetlands, what a magnificient end to a great day. Patsy told us stories about her family growing up in the bush and of the encounters they had with Buffalo, funny to laugh about now , but it wouldnt have been at the time, I could just see them scurrying up the nearest tree to get away. Patsy has been doing the tour with Shaun for 8 years and has only missed one day, she has such an amazing knowledge. On the way back Shaun said we had a little time so we stopped, filed out of the truck, and he gave us an informed run down of the milky way and star system. What a fabulous day, than you Shaun your knowledge is amazing but what an amazing teacher you have had, thank you Patsy we learned so much. We can recommend this tour to anyone wanting something a litle bit different. Thank you also Rachel for bringing out the butter ( though I suspect that was just an excuse to come out and have dinner with us)
Today we went on the 6.30am tour of the Yellow Water Wetlands, was a disappointment, too much time spent looking at a crocodile so that we missed spending time seeing much of the brolgas and other bird life. The afternoon was spent at Nourlangie rock, unbelievable, then to a few other rock places and wetlands. We came back to camp had a swim, then had a swim and spent happy hour with Colleen and Normie. Tomorrow we will go back towards Pine Creek and look around there.