Going downunder … Another travel blog

22Aug/09Off

Kakadu National Park

The night had been short when we got up at 4.45 a.m. to wait for our tour guide to pick us up at 5.50 a.m. With six other people and Jeff – our guide – we headed off to Kakadu. Kakadu is Australia's largest national park as it's twice the size of Belgium. It is 150km east of Darwin. We had three days to see everything.

First day:Crocodile

  • watching crocodiles (salties and freshies – don't swim with the salties; they'll eat you) and beautiful birds from a boat in the Mary River Wetlands (billabong)
  • enjoying wonderful Aboriginal rock art at Ubirr; gorgeous view over Nadab flood plain and at Arnhem Land
    great fire camp, didgeridoo and camping at Muirella Park

Second day:Twin Falls

  • learning about Aboriginal traditions: Playing the didgeridoo, getting to know Aboriginal hand craft, cooking the Aboriginal way and throwing spears at the pink pig 🙂
  • visiting the Twin Falls: It actually took us about 2 hrs for about 70 km on a street only allowed for 4WD vehicles. We had a boat carrying us to the falls through a wonderful valley up to the path that led to the Twin Falls where would then go to by foot.
  • visiting the Jim Jim Falls: We climbed over rocks about one kilometer to reach the base of Jim Jim. Right now the falls are dry as it's the dry season. As this is a place where there are no crocodiles directly at the falls we could go for a swim right to the base.
  • overnight camping at Maguk

Third day:swimming in plunge pools

  • swimming in awesome plunge pools high up at Barramundi Gorge
  • visiting Yellow Water to see some crocodiles
  • having a look at some of the termite mounts (there are thousands of them)
  • watching wild horses next to Old Jim Jim Road
  • heading back to Darwin