Darwin to Jabiru Kakadu National Park 260km
We got away at 8:30am and had an easy drive. We drove by
Humpty Do and onto our first stop for the day, The Window on the Wetlands. It is an interpretive centre on the wetlands of Kakadu. It has lots of information and displays. On the walk up to it, we passed a tree with an amazing spider web in it. It looked like there were hundreds of spiders that had worked together to make this enormous spiral of web, it was glistening in the sun, amazing. I was looking forward to looking out over wetlands and seeing lots of birdlife at “The Window”, but alas I was to be disappointed. The centre is at the top of a small hill and far away from any chance of seeing birds in a wetland, well at least in the middle of the dry season. The nearest birds were hanging around a buffalo herd down near a watering hole. But, from the “Window” you did get a great view over the flood plains around the Adelaide River.
We then drove out to Jabiru and checked into our caravan park. Once in the park we drove around and picked our site and set up under the shade of a beautiful big tree. (no green ant nests in this one!)
Once we had settled in and had done lunch we headed out to
explore Jabiru. It’s a strange little town. The shopping centre is a big group of buildings that aren’t very inviting, drab and very unremarkable. The store signage is very minimalistic, like they don’t want their peace interrupted by pesky customers. We finally found some reasonable post cards and had them written and posted to our grand children in no time. (An observation – why is it so hard to find postcards that are half decent and reflect the area you are in. You know, showcase the areas attractions, don’t just all go for the cliché crocodile, buffalo, waterfall or cringe worthy
“Aussie Humour”. Sorry had to get that out, LOL). We also found the supermarket and picked up some essentials, some OJ and ice creams for later.
We dropped the essentials off at the van and then headed out to Mamukala. It is a wetland viewing area and walk about 30km from Jabiru. About 100m from the carpark is a very large, but sympathetic wetland viewing shelter. There were only about 6 people including usthere, which was really nice. The wetlands were just so peaceful. A huge expanse of water covered in lily pads, reeds and surrounded by bushland. In the distance you could see (with the help of binoculars, a man at the bird watch invited both Deb and I to use his binoculars to see the birds, which was very thoughtful and very much appreciated) a group of Jabiru and brolgas. There was a Jabiru nest in one of the trees`nearby. Nearer to us were egrets, ducks and other smaller birds of amazing colour. There was a cormorant in a tree at the front of the bird watch, it seemed to be oblivious of us and was content to just sit there drying its wings and resting. A bit like us I guess, it was just so peaceful here, that it was very easy to just sit in the quiet and take in the beauty of what was laid out in front of us. As we left, we saw a kangaroo browsing in the bush with a Willy Wagtail on its back. There seems to be this affinity between kangaroos and wagtails, we saw a similar thing at Lucky Bay near Esperance.
We had an early dinner of bacon and egg rolls, yummmm, and
then headed out to Ubirr for sunset. Ubirr is a site of much Aboriginal rock art dating back thousands of years. It is the quintessential rock art that is associated with the Aborigines, and as such instantly recognisable. We will post some photo’s of the art works in our Flickr albums. From the carpark we followed the artworks trail and it was amazing at just how many sites of artwork there were. The works seem to cover all aspects of traditional life from hunting and fishing to tribal wars. We eventually made our way to a stony peak at the edge of the Kakadu escarpment, the Nadab Lookout, looking out over the vast floodplains. It’s midway through the dry season, so the plains were dotted with small billabongs and ponds. As the sunset, the colours of the hills and
the rocks changed and glowed with the colours of this country, the water in the billabongs sparkled and the horizon took on the brilliant red and orange colours of a top-end sunset. The peace
and tranquillity of the moment was only disturbed by 2 ratbag children screaming and running around! By 6:30, the sun had
set and the sky started taking on the orange sunset afterglow. We made our way back to the car and drove back to the caravan park. On the way we passed a wetland close to the road, it was reflecting the orange and reds of the horizon, with the silhouettes of the trees in the water it was an awesome site, and a magical way to finish our day.
(I just need to add to Greg’s blog – as we neared the top of the lookout – the view was stunning – Greg was heard to exclaim, “I love this country” I am taken aback every time I think of this. But I don’t know why, because this holiday has everything in it that he loves. It was a lovely moment and I am glad I was there to share it!)
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