Nights 144 - 153: Doing Kakadu

NIGHT  144  -  GUNGURUL CAMPING AREA, KAKADU NATIONAL PARK.

It took only a short drive into Kakadu before an unfortunate dichotomy presented itself.  It was a dichotomy of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, although not your typical ‘haves’ nor your typical ‘have nots’.  This dichotomy wasn’t about race or money or power, although Kakadu would foreground these things during the trip.  This dichotomy hinged upon wheels.

It was at the turn-off to Gunlom Falls, a mere 10kms into Kakadu proper, that a realisation struck – in Kakadu our plush ‘bago becomes a liability.  The track to Gunlom Falls is unsealed.  It’s rocky, rutted and, while not a designated 4WD only track, a quick internet trawl reveals it to be beyond the scope of the ‘bago.  Any attempt would be foolhardy. Something necessary and expensive would almost certainly break.

In Kakadu what you need is a 4WD and a tent.  The age or make or model of 4WD doesn’t matter, as long as it is well maintained.  And it doesn’t really matter how big or how old the tent is either, as long as it provides shelter from the mozzies and the night-time chill.  These are the ‘haves’.  If you have these Kakadu opens out to you.  If you have these there are hundreds of kilometres of corrugated tracks awaiting your adventures.

Most of the places of interest and beauty in Kakadu are like Gunlom Falls.  They expect commitment.  If you want to share their beauty you have to get gritty and get in there.  A lumpy 2WD motorhome has no grit.   Kakadu demands more than the plushness of a Winnebago and the sleek glide of a tar-sealed road.  Our ‘bago is exactly the wrong vehicle to take into Kakadu.  Even caravans or long fifth wheelers are more practical choices.  

As I sit here, in the early afternoon, in a pointless, easily accessed, nothing of much interest overnight camping area, I’ve watched as a fifth wheeler lumbered in.  I’ve watched as it took the better part of an hour for it to be properly set up.  Normally, upon watching this process, I’m thankful for the ‘bago; thankful that we really can just pull into a space and shut off the motor and hey presto we’re instantly set-up and comfortable.  At the fifth wheeler, however, the elderly couple have just climbed into their tow vehicle, a 4WD ute, and driven away.  The bastards.  We remain here, the only people in the campground, seeking adventure yet shackled to the ‘bago.

If you are wondering why I sit whining in the ‘bago  when we are fortunate enough to have a motor bike with us, or wondering why we don’t just ride the Vespa in to Gunlom Falls, then I’m here to inform you that a Vespa is the 2 wheel equivalent of a Winnebago.  It is plush and comfortable and happy along a bitumen road but practically useless anywhere else.  It is our second example of exactly the wrong vehicle to take into Kakadu.

Vehicle issues aside, I didn’t want to give up on seeing Gunlom Falls. As I understood it we still had a couple of options. 

OPTION 1 – hitchhiking.  We could park the ‘bago at the start of the dirt road and wait until another vehicle came along.  I doubted it would take long.  We could then get them to stop and, if they had room, hitch a lift into the falls.  We could even offer them a few bucks.  We could hitch a lift back in the afternoon, whether with the same people or not wouldn’t matter.  It’s a good plan.

OPTION 2  has many similarities with option 1 except that we do our ‘hitchhiking’ from a camping area through chatting to people.  This would take longer, organising it for the following day.  We could possibly post a sign somewhere:  ‘wanting to go to Gunlom Falls tomorrow.  Willing to share costs.  See Alan at site 33.’  This is also a pretty good plan.

But we didn’t do either. 

So, as far as Kakadu is concerned, we can only access the most homogenised of sights and sites.  Undoubtedly we will still see some good stuff but we will probably be seeing it as a small part of a large crowd.  The fact is, wherever the ‘bago can access so too can the big tour buses.  It’s hardly the stuff of high adventure but, looking back and being honest with ourselves, a motorhome like ours has never been the vehicular choice of the adventurous.

(I give Gungurral Camping Area 2 stars out of 5.  It offered a walk up a hill to a lookout, which we did.  It was nice but unspectacular.  It offered a walk past a serious crocodile warning sign to a river that had stopped flowing.  We didn’t know the river had stopped flowing ‘til we got there.  We turned around and walked back again.)

NIGHTS  145 – 148  -  COOINDA LODGE, KAKADU

Here the ‘bago makes sense.  This is no bush camp on the side of a road.  There’s a restaurant, a little shop, two swimming pools.  It’s an opulent splash of excess beside the Yellow Waters billabong and we are here for four days.  It was another of those ‘4 nights for the price of 3’ deals that we seem to find irresistible.  We reversed in among Britz and Maui and Hertz hire vans and settled in for a long stay.

 Yesterday’s realisation congealed into a resolve that we had to spend money.  If we wanted Kakadu experiences beyond comparing landscaped swimming pools then we had to get out there somehow -  amongst it -  and that involved a tour of some description.

So we booked a Yellow Waters cruise leaving at dawn, but that was two days away.  We talked about the possibility of me doing a fishing trip or of both of us taking a day tour to Jim Jim Falls but never followed them through.  Thankfully Shana then went to the laundry.

 

 

Caravan park laundries are mini libraries for many things, including advertising pamphlets.  Because you’re waiting for your washing to finish (because you’re always a little early) you sit and your mind wanders.  Then your eye is caught by the glossy colours and bold proclamations of these pamphlets.  Your mind becomes more directed.

Shana excitedly interrupted my apathy by entering the ‘bago and waving a pamphlet about.  This attracted my interest (and offered a cool little breeze which I’d have liked to continue).

“I want to do this” she said, enlivened.

I read it and I wanted to do it too.  Basically it offered an afternoon spent with an Aboriginal guide, driving through the bush and collecting traditional bush food, and an evening alongside a billabong preparing the food and cooking a feast in an earth oven.  It was a small tour.  No more than 20 people at a time.

It was almost 12 noon.  The tour left daily at 1pm.  Shana rang and we lucked out.  We jagged two seats for that day (the other days were all booked out).

The Animal Tracks Safari is run in co-ordination with a buffalo farm that exists unheralded in Kakadu.  Aboriginal people generally like the taste of buffalo meat but buffalos are an introduced species that have a malignant effect on the natural environment.  A decision was made in the 80s to get rid of buffalo from Kakadu, which was carried out by shooting thousands of them with high powered rifles from low flying helicopters.  There are very few left now and the land is better for it.  Without buffalo around, many wetlands have regenerated.  The Buffalo Farm, however, on behalf of Aboriginal peoples, was granted permission to farm buffalo for food.  It’s a noble idea but requires funding.  The buffalos aren’t sold but given away – two or three per day.  Animal Tracks Safari plays a part in raising revenue, taking people through some of the -hundreds of acres of the farm, teaching them about a few traditional Aboriginal food sources and how to acquire them. 

It was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had.

Patsy was our guide, an old Aboriginal woman who has known the surrounding land since she was a kid.  Sean drove the bus, a ‘whitefella’ with a vast knowledge himself.  While the light remained we dug for freshwater mussels in a creekbank, remaining alert for crocs and an approaching scrubfire.  We foraged for water chestnuts in a dried up wetland; in the scrub we ate tender leave shoots from the insides of  sandpalms and collected and ate green tailed ants (which are medicinal, used to relieve headache).  We went to a melaluca forest and gathered paperbark to be used in the cooking  and for carrying water.  We had two magpie geese that had been shot before we arrived that had to plucked and prepared for the fire.  Pasty sat cross legged and deftly cut the skeleton and guts from the geese using a precise series of cuts.  Buffalo meat was also prepared along with sweet potato, yams and damper, all cooked in a hole in the ground beside a billabong that, as the sun set, was visited by thousands of water birds.  The sight of all these hungry birds and the sounds they made en masse is something I will never forget – an urgent cloud of feathers and squawks descending from above to perch on the water’s edge, all shrouded in the orange glow of a Kakadu sunset.  Magical.

 

 While the meal cooked Patsy demonstrated how to make string using palm fronds and how to turn that string into baskets.  As mossies arrived we were shown which tree to strip leaves from to throw onto the fire as a repellent.  Everyone was covered in dust and dirt and smoke and most had a full belly and deep feelings of awe and wonder. (Some participants didn’t engage much.  Their problem.)  We drove home in the dark, shining torches on dingoes that were slinking into the area we’d just vacated, looking for scraps.  We saw nocturnal birds and tiny night frogs that live in low palm trees.  Patsy told us stories of her youth as we drove through the dark, although she was very hard to understand and Sean had to virtually retell the stories so we could make sense of them.  What came through strongly was the reality that Aboriginal culture cannot be separated from the land and how ‘Aboriginality’ is enacted  through locationally specific signifiers – when certain trees flower, when the rain starts/stops, changes in ecosystems throughout the year, geographical features.  I became aware of the stupidity of thinking that Aboriginal people can be removed from their land and be happily ‘re-homed’ in an area they have no connection to, nor deep understanding of, regardless of whether other Aboriginal tribes live there happily.  I may be of European descent but don’t bloody re-home me in Belgium.  Beyond the basics I’d have little idea of what’s going on no matter how often I was informed that the surrounding landscape should make little difference.

We returned from The Animal Tracks Safari content but tired.  We had to arise early for our dawn cruise.

The Yellow Waters cruise is spectacular, especially at dawn as the mist rises from the water across the profile of the rising sun, but it felt a bit insipid compared with the previous day.  It’s a pity that the two become compared but it can’t really be helped.  The truth is that, at Yellow Waters, Shana and I didn’t receive either the deep swell of awe and appreciation nor the electric jolts of realisation that we got from the Animal Tracks Safari.  Sitting safely in one of four very large punts as the guide points out various crocs by name and various water birds by the fact that they are there every day was interesting, don’t get me wrong, and the guide was informative and engaging, but it lacked resonance.  Actually, I think it lacked interaction.  As a schoolteacher, and borrowing from good old Bloom’s Taxonomy, I’d say it’s the difference between ‘remembering’, being talked at and trying to grasp what you are told, and ‘applying’, learning by doing, trial and error, self-evaluation through the attempt.  And, as all schoolteachers should know, a contented class is a class busily applying rather than one sitting passively and (probably not) listening.

 

The rest of the time at Cooinda lodge was spent lazing around the large pool, reading or daydreaming. More than once I paid $3.50 for a can of coke at the little shop but refused to pay $27.50 for a hamburger and chips at the restaurant.  We did get a breakfast as part of the dawn Yellow Water Cruise so we filled up on buffet that day.  A cake or two even made it back to the ‘bago for afternoon tea.

(I give The Cooinda Lodge 3 stars out of 5.  It was a comfortable place to stay.  It had water to immerse ourselves in. Once booked in, though, it became too expensive.  Everything was priced overly high, almost to the degree of profiteering.  Like an airport.  Twenty seven bucks for a hamburger.  Get real.  Plus I think somebody stole my $30 designer singlet from off the clothesline. )

NIGHT  149  -  MUIRELLA CAMPING GROUND, KAKADU

Muirella is a bush camping ground near Nourlangie Rocks, the site of some important Aboriginal cave paintings and rock art.  As a campground it offered the basics for ten bucks per person per night.  It had showers that worked okay.  While there we bumped into some people that we’d met months before, back at Workmans Beach near Agnes Waters.  They were camped next to us there but we hadn’t talked much.  Not sure why.  We became more acquainted here, sharing fivesies together.  They were cool.  We spoke from similar positions, following a similar trajectory.  That was pleasant.

 

At Nourlangie Rocks our education about things Aboriginal continued.  We timed our visit to coincide with a series of talks being given by a National Park’s ranger.  We followed him to three separate sites where he spoke about three separate (though entwined) aspects of Aboriginality.

The ranger’s name was Christian and, while we stood before a rock painting of a dreaming story, he explained succinctly how the Aboriginal concept of ‘kinship’ works.  He brought out a chart to help explain it.   It’s a complicated process let me tell you.  In essence, though, Christian explained how the terms  ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘uncle’, ‘aunty, and ‘mother’ have very different meanings than they do in Western culture.  Basically, it doesn’t centre upon family bloodlines as in my culture but rather birth categories.  I can’t go into it here but it went a long way to explaining how, ‘by tribal law’, certain Aboriginal people simply cannot talk to certain other people, depending on their kinship lines. No matter how you try to coerce them or beg them to do it, their law forbids it.  It is fascinating and makes a mockery of the ‘Terra Nullius’ view that Aboriginal cultures have no discernible structure.  As I’ve said, it is a very complex system and one that has been passed down orally for thousands of years.

 

 

 I’m becoming seriously impressed with the intelligence inherent in Aboriginal ways of life.  I’m also becoming aware of how complicated it must be to have to negotiate two very different law systems that rarely mesh.  Tribal law, from the little I understand of it, seeks different obediences than the law of ‘the crown’.  It advocates expectations that are at times in direct conflict with what contemporary Australian ‘society’ expects.   How would you decide which one to adhere to, especially when you consider one has been present and constant within the culture for thousands of years and the other was forced upon you less than 200 years ago and changes at the whim of the government of the day? 

(I give Muirella Camp Ground 2 ½ stars out of 5.  It was dusty and populated by gazillions of mozzies but it was clean and well-tended.)

NIGHT  150  -  KAKADU LODGE, JABIRU.

Kakadu Lodge is a massive resort that, according to legend, has never been full.  It starts with a pool and bar in the middle and then expands out in circles of increasing radius.  Each circle is two camping sites deep, with a road between.  There are at least four circles of powered sites.  The unpowered sites are around the outer extremity.  They keep the water up to it.  It is green, if not exactly lush.

 

We did nothing of note while here.  We went for several swims and went shopping in Jabiru.  We also went to the pie shop which had been recommended to us but it was closed.  It was Darwin Cup day.  They say of The Melbourne Cup that a nation stops to watch it.  Well, regarding The Darwin Cup, the Jabiru Pie Shop stops to watch it.   Maybe it’s only the Jabiru Pie shop because everything else in Jabiru seemed to be opened. Maybe the owners of the pie shop had a horse running.  Who knows.  I didn’t get a pie though.

(I give Kakadu Lodge 4 stars out of 5.  It is what it is – big, generic, semi-plush.  It has free movie screenings some nights and on other nights park rangers give a talk.  There’s heaps of toilets and heaps of showers with hot water.  What more could you want?)

NIGHT 151  -  MERL CAMPGROUND, KAKADU

We actually went to Merl twice, once during the day and again at night.  The daytime visit was timed so that Shana could find out a bit more, and get more practice at, basket weaving and twine making.

We’ve come to appreciate the amount of work that goes into making anything using palm fronds or pandanus.  It’s a laborious time-consuming task.  You need to collect the raw materials, strip them into the basis of twine, roll them together into a decent thickness and so that they join into lengths, then fashion it into the article you are making.  This is without dying the twine (or gathering the materials to make the different coloured dyes).  A small basket could take up to a month to make.  Despite this, or because of it, Shana has taken a strong interest.  She found out about a two hour weaving session organised through the National Park Service and led by two young Aboriginal women from the Injaluk Arts Centre in Gunbalanya.  They’d been brought down from East Arnem Land especially for the workshop.  There was no way we weren’t going to be there.

I found a spot beneath the trees, using my new $5 compass to find north, and sat in the shade while Shana went-a-weaving.   I coated myself in ‘Bushman’s’ while Shana concentrated on creating things. I went and took a few pics and came back again.  I was happy to be out of it.  Shana was equally happy squatting beneath the shelter.  She came back full of admiration for the women teaching her, but wishing she was more adept.  Twine making and weaving requires many years of practise.

 

We then went to Ubirr in the north of the park.  Stone country.  We were going to see more rock art and to watch the sun set from atop the rocks.  Several people had told us that sunset at Ubirr was a ‘must do’. 

It was only okay.  It was packed with school groups and older folk – the school groups were noisy and scurried over the rocks like colonies of yelling ants; the older folk with thier canes and walking sticks had trouble negotiating the skinny uneven rock paths, creating long queues of people behind them losing patience, especially after the sun had set and darkness fell quickly and a whole national park full of mosquitoes came out to feed.  I prefer sunsets over water, although the sun did turn vibrant orange in the haze of burn-off smoke.  I guess it was iconic.

 

The rock art at Ubirr, like the rock art at Nourlangie, is interesting but fading badly, despite attempts to preserve it.  Some of it is already thousands of years old.   Some paintings, however, were painted in the early 1960s, just before Kakadu was declared a national park.  This is as it should be.  The caves and rock walls exist in places that have been used as shelters during wet seasons for thousands of years.  Over time painting on the walls has had a two-fold purpose (at least) – as a way of depicting tribal myths and laws in a culture without (alphabetic) writing, and as a pursuit to while away the hours while the rain pelted down beyond the cave.  Rock paintings were for teaching and rock painting was for fun.  Aboriginal people aren’t spending wet seasons there now and so no new painting is being done.  As such what you see now is art as history but not art as vibrancy of colour and continuing culture, which I think is a pity.  I’d like to see at least one new rock painting commissioned every so often.  This would not detract from the existing paintings or weaken their impact, or not in my opinion anyway.  To me it would add another level of interest being able to compare the old and the new.  And, of course, the new becomes old over time, adding to the longevity of these sites and how they are intrinsic within a continuing Aboriginal culture.  Without the new the old is in danger of fading away completely.

We made our way back to Merl Campground in the dark to find out that there was no lighting in the toilets or showers.  You can (and we did) use a torch in the toilet quite easily.  Showers pose different problems however.  We had a shower in the dark looking toward the positive – at least having no lights attracted no mozzies.  I give Merl campground 3 stars out of 5.  Having no lights was a problem but it is a cheap national park’s camp and they were having problems with their solar set-up.  We’d have been grumpy had we paid $40 bucks but for $10 each paid to a good cause ‘shit happens’.

NIGHT 152 – KAKADU RESORT, JABIRU.

It would appear that we are following a ‘zebra crossing’ pattern in our sleeping arrangements.  Let’s call bush camping ‘black’ and resort camping ‘white’. (You could easily swap what each colour has been attributed to if you want. For example it makes no difference if bush camping is ‘black’ or ‘white’.  The image remains the same).  The patterns goes bush (black), resort (white), bush (black), resort (white), bush (black), resort (white), bush (black) and now resort (white) again.  We didn’t plan it this way but we found it moderately interesting when we realised it. (Now all we need is four Beatles striding out along it, Paul bare-footed).

Anyway, the preceding paragraph demonstrates that I’ve really got nothing to say about Kakadu Resort.  We’ve stayed here before.  We’re back now.  They still have a pool.  The score remains the same.

Cahill’s Crossing is different.  I could write too much about it so I’ll just write a bit.  Get there yourself.

At Cahill’s Crossing crocs cross the road and wait for the tide to change.  High tide floods the road up to 500mm. It sweeps large fish across from the low side to the high side.  The crocs know this and wait.  We counted 9 big-arsed wild crocs waiting at one stage.  As the fish get swept over the crocs go in with mouths open.  They catch the fish and you watch as they cut and grind them into smaller pieces.  It is equal parts disgusting and fascinating.  Sometimes the crocs fight against each other.  It is the best free spectacle in Australia.  Truly.

 

 

NIGHT  153  -  BEATRICE HILL REST AREA, HUMPTY DOO.

Kakadu is a large park serviced by two main roads.  These roads make an angle a bit like a ‘greater than’ symbol.  The road making the top half of the symbol is called The Arnhem Highway.  It starts (or stops) just below Darwin and heads south east to Jabiru.  The second part of the angle is the Kakadu Highway.  It goes south west from Jabiru and joins The Stuart Highway at Pine Creek.

We started ‘at the bottom’ (Pine Creek) which meant we emerged from Kakadu closer to Darwin; Humpty Doo to be exact.

I love the name ‘Humpty Doo’.  Love it.  I’ve long wanted to tell people at parties that I’ve been to Humpty Doo (I’m not the most enigmatic party guest).  And now I can.  I can even tell them that I’ve been to ‘The Window on the Wetlands’ (W.O.T.W.) cultural centre, although I doubt I will.  Maybe it’s because we visited it on the way out of Kakadu that we found W.O.T.W. boring.  Visited on the way in it may serve nicely as an initial contact, easing the viewer gently into a Kakadu experience.  Maybe.  We’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.  W.O.T.W is built on the site of a failed government sponsored rice plantation which then became a failed government sponsored agricultural centre (farm).  One hopes that it doesn’t become a failed government sponsored cultural centre.

The Beatrice Hill rest area was visible from W.O.T.W.  In fact, we commandeered the ‘look out over the wetlands’ binoculars to assess whether Beatrice Hill was a worthwhile option for the evening.  There was only a single caravan there (it was only 1pm) but little shade.  It’d be fine.  We exited, past the kiosk selling pies but not to me (such willpower), and drove 500mtr down the road. 

Beatrice Hill filled up ridiculously.  No toilets, not flat, little shade, yet vans of all description squeezed in next to us and around us and between each other.  They were mostly hire vans and Shana and I surmised that it was the first free camping spot from Darwin.  Even so, we’d have liked it if the young French couple who pulled up next to us had a friendlier demeanour and a more generous sense of personal space.

 

  I give Beatrice Hill 1 star out of 5.  It didn’t cost any money and, beyond that, had little going for it.

 

And so endeth our trip to ‘the du’.  It’s definitely not a case of Kakadon’t, a warning we’d heard from several grey nomads we’d met.  In my opinion Kakadu offers beautiful sites, but those sites are not as easily accessible as similar sites at Lichfield.  If you have little time and want to attain the biggest thrill per minute ratio then Lichfield’s definitely the place.  Kakadu, however, offers a breadth of different landscapes, cultures and experiences.  If you have the time, and spare cash to spend, then Kakadu has within it the possibility to alter your way of thinking. 

 

 

 

 

Nights 130 - 143: In & Around Darwin

NIGHTS  130  &  131 – LEEANNE’S PLACE, BATCHELOR.

Sometimes people just connect.

 And so do dogs.

 We met Leeanne in Brisbane and our dogs fell in love with each other.  For a night and a day they wouldn’t leave each other alone.  They ran together, fell asleep with each other and, in a massive show of affection, allowed each other a share of their food.  Shelly is a red kelpie and, according to Leeanne, she’s not normally accepting of other dogs. 

Leeanne would probably have shared her food also, but we didn’t ask her to.  We shared drinks though and found we got on really well. She invited us to visit her when going to Darwin.  We looked forward to seeing her again.

Arriving at Leeanne’s front fence set Shelly off.  She barked angrily at Shana and I until she saw Moz.  She then stopped barking and licked at his nose through the wire.  That was a good sign.  We’d planned to leave Moz there while we visited a national park or two.  We hoped Shelly wouldn’t be territorial at home.  It sometimes happens.  Thankfully she wasn’t.  The romance re-blossomed before us and we entered the property, leaving them to it.

Leeanne lives on a wide, flat road which allowed us to sleep in the ‘bago.  She offered us a bed but we declined. The ‘bago is our home.  We like it in there.  While she went to work we hung around, reading her books and going for walks around Batchelor.  We liked her house and offered her our services while she went on an upcoming holiday.  She accepted, so we will be house-sitting for ten days during August.  It has worked out well for us both.  She is looking after Morrissey for three weeks while we tour around Litchfield and Kakadu and then we look after the house and Shelly while she’s gone.  Win-win.  We are so thankful that we met her on that warm and cheerful night at Camille’s place.

 

The Rum Jungle pub was but a short walk away from Leeanne’s and it was there that I watched NSW again get their butt kicked.  I sat up the back initially, until the drinks kicked in.  Alcohol can send me seeking tobacco and I bought a ciggie for $2 from a guy in a Qld Jersey.  We chatted and he invited me to join him and his mates, all Qld supporters.  They were all drunk but friendly and we ribbed each other playfully.  I shook all their hands at the end of the game, congratulating them as if they’d contributed somehow to the win.  They asked me to stay but I left immediately.  Queensland deserved to win but I couldn’t endure any post game posturing.  Once again this sad and sulking blues fan walked solemnly home.

NIGHT  132  -  SHADY GLEN CARAVAN PARK, DARWIN

Sammie and Chris arrived today.  We picked them up at the airport, beating them into Darwintown by about an hour.  We’d booked a site for the night at the Shady Glen.  It had a nice sounding name, even if it had been built at the end of the airport runway.  We could stick our fingers in our ears if need be; mainly we just wanted a place out of the sun.

Shady Glen was a massive park.  They crammed us all in but they did have big shade trees.  Chris pitched his two person tent beneath our awning. We filled it with cushions from the ‘bago’s lounge, threw in a doona and some pillows, zipped it tight and hit Darwin for the evening. 

 

Our first stop was Mindil Sunset Markets.  I found them uninspiring as a market but possibly because there was a strong focus on food - I was saving my appetite for our evening meal.  We’d booked a highly recommended restaurant and it was Sam’s shout - (thanks Sammie).  We did all decide to try eating crocodile though, reasoning that it wouldn’t be part of the night’s menu.  Between us we shared crocodile burgers and crocodile sushi and rejected crocodile hotdogs.  We found it a tough meat to chew but haven’t written it off completely.  Perhaps market stalls aren’t always the best places to try exotic new cuisines.

The sunset was superb though.  Mindil Beach faces west and so it was my first ever sunset disappearing into water.  It was spectacular.  For the twenty or so minutes that the sun seared into the ocean the beach was packed. I felt like clapping.  It was as good as any fireworks. Once the orange sky had faded away everyone just wandered off, us to find a taxi to take us into town.

Hanuman’s Restaurant came highly recommended by friends and online.  Its menu offered a modern fusion between Thai and Indian, which sounded interesting, plus it supposedly had an extensive range of cheap and tasty cocktails.  Great.  Those who know me know I like a brightly coloured umbrella drink or two.

Perhaps we hit it on an off night.  Both the food and the cocktails were over flavoured.  We all agreed that the food was prepared with a heavy hand.  It wasn’t terrible but we were hoping for better, something more subtle.  We wanted to nod excitedly to each other across the table, our mouths happy and full.  It was not to be, and the leaden brown walls and purple fluorescent strip lighting added little to the experience.  “It used to better” we’ve been told since “when it was uptown and in the smaller premises.  You should have tried it then.  It was really special then”.   

Mitchell Street was lit up and beckoning as the drunken rebel-rousing place to be.  We wandered along it, Chris reminiscing about a football trip spent there.  We resisted its somewhat haggard siren song and caught a taxi back to the Shady Glen.  It had been a fun first night together.  We went to bed excited about heading to Litchfield National Park.

I give The Shady Glen Caravan Park 2 stars out of 5.  It had a pool, a coke machine, and what seemed like its own airport with planes roaring into the sky before I was ready to greet the new day.

NIGHT  133  -  LITCHFIELD SAFARI CAMP, LITCHFIELD NATIONAL PARK.

Litchfield National Park is spectacular. 

We left Darwin and Shana drove, with Sam, Chris and I all seated around the back table.  It was at Shana’s suggestion.  She doesn’t like sitting at the back.  She suffers from car sickness.  Chris went up to join her about 30mins into the journey.  Sam and I, according to Shana, chatted away like monkeys as the ‘bago headed towards what we hoped were waterfalls with deep and cool swimming holes.

We drove past the magnetic termite mounds, none of us excited much by them.  It was nearing noon and we wanted water.  First stop was Florence Falls.  It was crowded and had lots of steps to go down but it is everything we had hoped – a deep plunge pool with access to dive under the waterfall curtain.  The water was cold and clear and very refreshing.  We swam and sat on the rocks and felt still.  After an hour or so we followed Sandy Creek back to the carpark.  It offered many little water holes to sit in, which we occasionally did.  We had late lunch beside it then, with bellies full, sat in it some more.  We intended going to Buley’s rock holes nearby but time had gotten away from us.  We clambered back into the ‘bago enroute to the campground, 30 mins away.

Litchfield Safari Camp is at the end of a dirt road at the top north end of the park.  We passed Wangi Falls to get to it but, once our site was confirmed, intended returning before nightfall, which we did.

Wangi Falls has a massive swimming area as big as a small lake.  We’d heard and read about it and looked forward to diving in.  Unfortunately it was closed to swimming when we got there.  There’d been a recent crocodile sighting (unconfirmed) and the protocol was to close the place to swimming while the area was thoroughly searched.  It usually took 3 days.  Today was the third day, so provided no croc was found, it would be re-opened tomorrow.  Righto then, we’d come back tomorrow.  For today we lay on the jetty and watched the waterfall and talked quietly among ourselves.

 As night descended we went back to the camp to set up.  There were ants near the ‘bago so Chris and Sam set the tent up in a grove of trees nearby.  They swear they heard dingos howling through the night. 

I give Litchfield Safari Campground 3 stars out of 5.  It was rough around the edges, which was perfectly in keeping with its location. They had a sign up seeking a caretaker.  I thought about it but not for long. We‘ll probably hole up and get work somewhere but this wasn’t the place.

NIGHT 134 – BATCHELOR BIG 4 CARAVAN PARK

Another big day in Litchfield.  A misty morning burned off into another glorious blue sky day.  First stop, Wangi Falls again.  We were all ready for a swim and some members of the party were hankering for a coffee - Wangi has a large kiosk.

Double disappointment.

 The swimming hole had yet to be re-opened and the coffee came from a push button machine bearing the sign: ‘Coffee – 1 type. 1 size.  1 milk.  It’s good enough for the bush’.  Shana bought one and made disapproving faces until it was finished.  It gave her a hit but no pleasure. 

Our first planned stop was at ‘Cascades’.  There is an Upper Cascades and a Lower Cascades.  We four university graduates reasoned that ‘upper’ meant a climb and that lower probably meant more water.   We turned left, following the creek towards the lowers.

The walk was lovely, following a rocky path through tall trees beside a clearwater flowing creek.  At times you had to cross the creek, jumping wary-footed from slippery rock to slippery rock.  At other times there was a tricky little climb.  We all agreed this was a good thing.  It wasn’t simply a case of pull up in the carpark and follow a gravel path.  The difficulties inherent in the track surely meant that the crowds would be less. It was unsuitable for those older or unsteady on their feet.

We didn’t go to the end.  We stopped short but could see the end destination clearly.  It housed a smallish swimming hole beneath a short drop waterfall.  There were dozens of people in it.  However, 200mtrs below, where we stopped, there was a smaller pool beneath a smaller waterfall, big enough to provide aquatic fun for up to four people.  We claimed it immediately, only having to share it with a hunting heron that ignored us completely.  We played there for an hour or so, directing any newcomers further along the creek.  “This isn’t it” we said continuously, “it’s up there further”.  The message was obvious.  Sod off, it said, we found this bit before you.  

After eating lunch our next stop was Greenant Creek and the rock pool above Tjaetaba Falls.

The climb wasn’t overly arduous but it did take an effort.  Maybe this is why there was hardly anybody up there.  All the time we were there we didn’t have more than four other people around us.  This made for a friendly atmosphere whereby everyone chatted in between launching themselves into the pool.  And you could launch into it because the pool was maybe 5mtr round and 3mtrs deep.  It was the most idyllic spot yet.  Such a deep, clean pool set high up above the park.  It offered a sweeping view, warm flat lazing rocks, a bombing pool with rock platforms and convivial human interactions.  Yet it doesn’t seem to be one of Litchfield’s main points of interest.  The carpark is small and it’s not mentioned in all the pamphlets.  That surprises me.  It is one of the best bush places I have ever been.

And then the day was over.  There were many other places we’d liked to have visited but couldn’t.  We drove into Batchelor and had a home cooked evening meal at Leeanne’s.  Full of tasty vegetarian food we wandered back through the streets of Batchelor toward the camping ground. 

I give the Batchelor Big 4 Camping Ground my thanks.  It was nicely appointed but, more importantly, they granted us an extra hours morning stay so we could celebrate Sam’s birthday with a Daddy cooked fry up.

NIGHT 135  -  ANNIE & SCOTT’S HOUSE, DARWIN.

“Wake up Sammie.  It’s your birthday day”.

It was a beautiful feeling having Sam with us on her birthday.  If you think about it, doing a lap of Australia is a selfish thing.  You are away from friends and family for a long period of time.  You are following your own dream at the expense of the many smaller but no less important events that occur during any given year.  Some are known in advance, like birthdays, and some occur suddenly to everyone.  There are at least three 50^th birthday celebrations I will miss this year.  There have already been a couple of funerals we would have attended had we been in Newcastle.  Nobody knows what will unfurl during a year and we will be far, far away from most of it.

But the chance came for us to do this trip and we grabbed it eagerly.  Who knows, maybe the chance was fleeting, requiring immediacy of action.  Maybe if we didn’t do it now the option would be taken from us.  We’ve heard many stories already of “should have done it earlier” and “we were going to do a trip like that but…”  

Shana and I love what we are doing.  We often smile at each other and reaffirm how thankful we are and how lucky we are to be given this opportunity.  Sam and Chris being here for Sam’s birthday truly is ‘the icing on the cake’.  They flew from Melbourne to Darwin, which is a long return flight to stay for only three nights.  But I’m so grateful that they did. 

Thank You Sam and Chris.  Litchfield National Park is a beautiful place, but Australia has many beautiful places, and we hope to experience many of them.  I love that whenever I remember Litchfield’s beauty, though, your faces will be there - smiling, playing and laughing alongside us.  It’s these things that make a happy life.

Plus there’s beauty and joy in reacquainting yourself with friends.

Shana lived with Annie & Scott in Brisbane.  She now lives in Newy; they live in Darwin.  It was time to catch up, to rediscover each other in the present and to let aging reinterpret events from the past.  Scott cooked a fantastic meal.  We sat beneath a canopy of high, large leaved trees.  We drank cider and gin in tall ice-filled glasses beside the pool.  I listened as they reconnected.

 Satisfied.

NIGHT 136  -  SHADY GLEN CARAVAN PARK, DARWIN.

We’ve been here before.  It was okay.  Expensive, but not as exorbitant as some parks around Darwin.  We had to wash clothes and be domestic for a day.  We had to get a wheel alignment on the ‘bago.

We spent the arvo in Darwin, wandering around the waterfront.  We bought another meal in another Darwin restaurant only to be disappointed again.  Maybe it is our continuing bad luck, but food doesn’t seem to be Darwin’s strong point.  We went for a swim in a netted off section of the harbour.  Compared to the cool clear rockpool water of our recent days, the tepid salty slimy harbour water was always going to be a pale imitation.  We took a brief walk through town reading the many information boards around the place.  Darwin has an interesting history.  We plan to see it more properly before heading west.  Just not sure when.

NIGHTS 137  -  139  - TUMBLING WATERS CARAVAN PARK, BERRY SPRINGS.

 Tumbling Waters is an oasis in the middle of dry and barren bush, although we didn’t have an oasis site.  We were in the ‘overflow’ section.  Basically, this means all the good sites were occupied and we could stay there at a cheaper rate, agreeing to being provided with no power or water and parking on what resembled a sporting oval.  But it’s Darwin during the cool dry.  Choices are limited.  We have solar and 12 volt.  We have a 100ltrs of drinking water.  The shower and toilet block was nearby and they had a cheap 3 day deal.  We handed over the money and reversed in beneath the power lines, near the scrubby trees.  Actually, it turned out to be a good place to stay.

 

The Territory Wildlife Park was just a short Vespa ride away and Shana really wanted to go there.  I was less enthused.  It’s basically a zoo and I’ve always found zoos to be depressing places.  Animals in cages are sad.  I’ve heard many conservationist arguments for why zoos are needed in today’s world but I find the sight of an animal crammed into a small scale manufactured representation of it’s natural ecosystem sad.  I imagine that the animal would rather be somewhere else.

 

Anyway, as far as these places go, the Territory Wildlife Park is great.  It’s a massive park requiring you to hop on and off of little trains that they have scooting about the place.  God forbid we tourists  walk in the NT heat.  The walk through aviary is spectacular, as is the aquarium, but it’s the raptor show you should see if ever you go there.  Using an elaborate choreography of opening and closing cage doors and a well-timed scripted narration, various large birds of prey fly over and around you on cue.  Some dive for food at the pool at back, others break eggs using the rocks positioned nearby, some grab planted meat and perch above the crowd, tearing at it with talon and beak, flecks of raw animal raining on those seated below.  It’s spectacular to watch and hear as the air fills with the sound of large flapping wings and high-pitched bird calls.

 There are talks offered everywhere in the Wildlife Park.  We went to many and I learned some interesting facts about NT’s native wildlife.  That’s a positive zoo thing (it’s just a pity that my learning apparently requires, for example, a large saltwater crocodile to live in a tiny, glass fronted pond).

The Caravan Park also offered some pleasant services.  There was the usual – swimming pool, kiosk, bar, etc.  But every Wednesday night was outdoor movie night, and we were there on a Wednesday.  We grabbed our deck chairs and steeled ourselves, first against the mozzies and then against the surprisingly cold night air.  The pre-movie entertainment was Adele live in concert, although we got to watch only the songs the guy in charge wanted to watch.  We then sat through a couple of songs by ‘Roy Orbison and Friends’, again edited by the dude with the remote control.  Then the main movie started – ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’.  We’d seen it before but it is a fun movie, and also topical in an audience comprising at least 80% grey nomads.

I give the Tumbling Waters Caravan Park 4 stars out of 5.  They even had their own fenced billabong housing seven freshwater crocs.  We went and watched them several times.  The crocs never moved once while we were there (although they were in different places). Could they have been made from concrete?  Did someone move them about at night? I smiled at one, despite all the singing I’ve had to do regarding never doing so, but it had no effect at all.  What does that tell you?

NIGHT  140  -  ROBIN FALLS, NEAR ADELAIDE RIVER.

Shana had read about Robin Falls on Wikicamps.  It was a free camp on the way to the Daly River, which is where we were headed.  It was at the end of a dirt road.  We stopped to check it out hoping to get a night without having to spend money.

The road in looked sketchy.  Dirt, but with deeply creviced ruts where many tyres had gouged it out.  But it was only a small section of ruts.  Beyond it looked okay.  We parked the ‘bago and walked the road for a kilometre or so, eventually deeming it okay.  We eased our way through and found a lovely spot beside a running creek.

The falls themselves had little flow and a small pool, big enough to sit in but not much else.  We went there once but it wasn’t worth the climb to go back.  We settled down for the afternoon next to the creek, which also had ‘sitting pools’ dotted along its length.  There were other people camped around us but we all maintained a respectful distance.  Until just before dark.

Just before dark, while I was cooking on the weber, a four wheel drive arrived with two adults and four teenagers.  It pulled in right behind us.  A guy got out and quickly scouted the area.  The light was diminishing rapidly.  The other adult made a bad driving decision and, while the first adult scouted, the second adult got the car stuck in a ditch so that it wouldn’t move.  Minor panic ensued, the constant revving of the car attracting people from up and down the road.  Some brought shovels while most offered advice.  The 4WD belonged to a youth group.   It was a long-weekend in Darwin and the adults had brought the teens into the bush to teach them bush skills.  So far they’d taught them what not to do – they’d arrived too late and now the 4WD was stuck.  While many hands helped free the 4WD, (I continued cooking), the teens erected six dome tents with the help of the no longer driving adult.  4WD eventually freed, they needed to make a fire to do some cooking.  But the kids had erected the tents where the fire needed to be.  They had to move all six tents.  Unfortunately they moved them to within three metres beside us.  We didn’t really care.  We felt for the adults and recognised how hard their job must be but, still, we’d rather not have four teenagers camped directly beside us.  We imagined all sorts of silliness and carry-on during the night.  We shut ourselves in and put on a DVD.  At ten o’clock I went for a man wee.  They were all fast asleep.  In the morning their tents were there but they had gone for the day.  I hope they had a good time.  I hoped the adults retained their sanity.

 

I give Robin Falls 4 ½ stars out of 5.  It is a beautiful free camp site.  The creek flows and you can sit in it.  The people are friendly.  There are no facilities at all but it was a great find.

 

NIGHTS  141 & 142 – THE MANGO FARM, DALY RIVER.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to have a large caravan park all to yourself?  Imagine not having to queue for the showers or toilets or laundry?  Imagine being able to make as much noise as you like.  Imagine there being nobody around you, yet you are free to enjoy whatever it is that spurred the Caravan Park to be built there in the first place.  Alone.  Just you and your partner.

When we got to The Mango Farm the gate was closed.  It didn’t seem unusual.  We’d just driven 100 kms along crumbling and bouncy tar roads, driven the last 10kms along dirt roads that sprung up on us unexpectedly, having been mentioned nowhere in any of the literature we’d read. We were off the beaten track.   We’d driven across cattle grates and through the mango plantation to get here.  The closed gate seemed fair enough.  Farms do that don’t they – close gates?  A sign said go to site 15 to book in.  We walked past a closed kiosk and into the park.

Site 15 was easily spotted.  In the whole park, a park with 50 odd powered sites, there was only 1 van in sight.  There was a woman nearby, holding a broom.  She was friendly, ignoring the fact that our minds were trying to process what we were seeing – that the place looked abandoned, like a ghost caravan park.  She chatted chirpily, asking how long we intended staying.  It all felt so spooky.  I could see that Shana had thoughts of a similar answer to me “about as long as it takes us to get back to our car”.  But we wanted to see the Daly River.  We wanted an experience a bit off the track.  We’d driven this far. 

We had to pay cash.  The managers had recently left and nobody could use the electronic banking devices.  We had enough cash in our pockets to stay for two nights.  We literally had to collect up 10 cent pieces to scrape it all together.  We passed the money over and were directed to a spot near the only toilet block that was opened. We drove past the vacant cabins.  We drove past the closed down bistro.  We drove past the empty manager’s quarters.  We turned left past the owner’s house, the owner who now lived somewhere else.   

When we reached our spot we saw two more vans.  One was vacant, left there until the owner returned.  The other was across the far side of the park, in the ‘unpowered’ section.  Shana waved to the occupants and received the most reluctant of returned waves.  Whoever they were it was obvious we weren’t going to have fivesies together.

 

So we swam in the pool by ourselves, more than once.  We went to the pontoon by ourselves.  We walked to the back billabong by ourselves.  We used both of the open toilets and both of the opened showers.  That night, as night fell, the strangest of bird calls wrenched the darkness, followed by the continuous murmur of colonies of bats.  The place was empty but filled with night noises.  Most came from the trees above but not all.  There were noises we couldn’t account for.

The morning dawned bright and the cooler night air had allowed us to sleep.  About 9am we awoke.  I planned to do some fishing.  Shan’ planned to read by the pool.  An internet search had revealed many answers.  The owner had gone into politics and left management of the place to his erstwhile son.  The son hadn’t liked it, and walked away.  It was now being run by the caretakers who, while not sending people away, weren’t actively courting them either.  The place was in transition.  It was a popular fishing haven but I think the large fishing groups were being dissuaded until things became sorted.  Good o, mystery solved.  We were becoming used to a park to ourselves.

Then the other vans started arriving.  Be careful what you wish for.

I’d said that I’d rather maybe there were a couple more people here.  I don’t mind a conversation or two during the day with somebody new.  This newbie walked the park and chose a spot – DIRECTLY BEHIND US!  There were over 40 vacant sites in the park and they chose to park where we could almost touch each other when sitting outside our vans.  We didn’t want to talk to them then.  We were both gobsmacked that they chose to crowd us in and, in an almost empty park, take any outdoor privacy away from us.  We weren’t rude to them, although we wanted to be.  When the woman asked Shana was there anywhere nearby that she could buy cornflakes we almost felt sorry for her, especially when we saw that she had her bag over her shoulder.  We don’t know where she thought she was going to walk to.

Another van pulled up during the afternoon, and went beside us.  JAYSUS!  What was going on?  We’d have to stop being so charming.

I give The Mango Farm 2 stars out of 5.  It would have been very flash had anything been open.  But there was nothing there. Not even any barra-bloody-mundi.  And the screeching night noise belonged to a caged house cockatoo, crying all through the night for the owner to come home.

NIGHT  143  -  PUSSY CAT FLAT, PINE CREEK.

We’d stayed here before as well.  It was the night I met a fellow bodyboarder. I have fond memories of the place but this time around it offered us less. 

This time there was nobody there under 65, but many who were over 65 and wanting to impart their wisdom in a loud voice.  At Pussy Cat Flat you sit under a large carport type awning, a bar in the corner.  You sit at round tables on a concrete floor, four plastic seats per table.  At the table to our right a bloke almost turned me off Tasmania with his loud and rabid fanaticism.  All the “you have to” do this and that was overpowering.  The other bloke at the table looked shell-shocked.  At the table in front an equally loud bloke wearing the shortest of shorts almost displayed his ‘nads while he moaned about Cairns.   (Apparently Stubbies are making a comeback, and not just for the older folk.  You can buy them again, new, and not as a joke from an op shop. This horrifies me.  I’ve had too many experiences of trying to ignore my father’s genitals as they peek through the left leg hole.  We, the generation who have experienced short shorts in practice, should do our utmost to dissuade this coming generation who think they are a good idea in theory.  We must help them to see that there are lessons in history; that some things should never be repeated.  Things like Nazism and Fascism and fob pocketed elastic waisted Stubbies short shorts.  It’s our duty to posterity ).

Tomorrow we head into Kakadu.  The loud old nomads all call it ‘Kakadon’t’, as if it is the funniest pun ever and they were the first person to say it.  There’s a sense of disenchantment about Kakadu among the nomadic set but, thankfully, we get the chance to make up our own mind.