Kakadu National Park

Three days in Kakadu National Park with 4 young Europeans, us and a guide, Max (yes, he got his nickname from mad Max and no, he didn't look in the least like Mel Gibson). Actually, he was the spitting image of Mark, Zoe's boyfriend! Same mannerisms, same bald head (and he used to have a long ponytail too), same beard, same shorts, same love of the outdoors, different accent and a few more years. Kakadu is huge and I'm not sure where to start. Unfortunately, we are still not able to put photos up, but hope to do so when we get to Alice Springs in a day or so. Kakadu was about a 3 hour drive out of Darwin in Max's Landcruiser with a trailer on the back that seemed to have been made by the Sorcerer - it spewed a constant stream of ice cold water, food, towels, sheets, more ice cold water, books on local geology, history, etc. etc. etc.
We drove first to Ubirr where we saw aboriginal rock art thousands of years old. There are many different styles - lots of handprints as well as "x-ray art" where you can see the bones and internal organs of fish, lots of local animals and spirit people. Max exlained the implications of one little man which looked like the kind of person I would draw. Think something a little better than a stick figure, obviously wearing trousers and a shirt, with no hands and feet sticking out sideways. He had no hands because the Aboriginals were fascinated with western dress - he obviously had his hands in his pockets so you coudn't see them - and the big feet indicated his shoes, another strange phenomenon.
Northern Australia at this time of year is VERY HOT AND HUMID. We drank more water (and peed less) than we have ever done before. Walking under the hot sun is taxing, but getting to the rock art pictures was definitely worth it, as was the steep climb up to the top of an outcrop to see an amazing view of the flood plane. By the end of October, Northern Australia is usually in "the wet" - when there is tons of rain and everything floods. But the rains are late this year which was both good and bad for us - good because we had gorgeous views (but had to puff and pant to get them!) and bad because of course with no water, the famous Jim Mim and Twin Falls were not running. However, Max took us to two other falls (Maguk and Gulom for those of you with an extra urge to find them) which were absolutely gorgeous. Both involved a hot walk so it was incredible to tear off your clothes and leap into a cool pool surrounded by amazing scenery. There were lots of "Beware Crocodile" signs everywhere but it would be a pretty hardy crocodile that could make its way up to those pools (more about crocodiles later!)
Our campsite was by the Jim Jim Billa and was only used by the tour company that we went with which has an arrangement with some local people to use their land. It's a permanent campsite with very comfortable "tents" - more like open-sided, hard floored strucures with beds, chairs and there was A SHOWER!! Composting toilets too - all the amenities of home. Max did all the cooking and we pitched in with doing dishes and clean up. A billa , by the way, is a body of water that is left when a river dries up in bits during "the dry", leaving deeper parts still filled with water - so pretty soon it will be running again. Our tent had a deck with chairs so we could sit and watch the sun come up and all the birds come in - tons of magpie geese (must be cousins of Canada geese as they look much the same but markings are more like a magpie), so many water birtds that we couldn't keep up with them in the bird book and many species of atoo. We also saw wallabies, dingos and brumbies (wild horses) as well as Cane toads which came out at night and have been responsible for wiping out many local species as they are very poisonous when eaten. We heard crocodiles roaring but didn't actually see any. We visited a local family and met a delightful Aboriginal woman called Mandy who taught us to weave bracelets and told us about their way of life as we all (yes, John did too!) made our bracelets. A Actually, John tok quite a shine to Mandy so we had a very good afternoon! We tried some cooked magpie goose which was very good, but I'm not a great fan of animal fat, so I dropped a small piece of the ground which was immediately discovered by abaout 8 million ants, so I had to 'fess up!
Mandy's daughter turned up in our lives the next day when we had stopped by the side of the road to look at a huge termite mound. The mounds are EVERYWHERE and the one we stopped at was about 4 meters tall. We were gathered around oohing and aahing when another vehicle pulled up with a whole bunch of trainee Aboriginal kids (one of them being Mandy's daughter) with their instrucotr, so we learned a lot about termites (they are very small and extremely busy), what they do (gather vegetable matter from underground) and why their mounds look like castles (so that different sides of the "pinnacles" get the sun at different times of day to keep the temperature inside constant). The mound we stopped at was about 100 years old. We also learned a bit about "bush tucker" - one of the very shy kids showed us a growth on a tree that looked like a small apple. With lots of encouragement from his friends, he opened it and showed us the grub inside - bright green caterpillar-type thing. With even more encouragement, he ate it! Luckily there was no suggestion that the tourists might like to try one. The local accent is very attractive - they use "yes" at the end of a sentence to indicate either "do you understand?" (He is really going to eat that thing, yes?) or like punctuation (We're leaving now, yes) - pretty much like the Canadian "eh".
On our last day, we went on a river cruise in the Yellow Waters region where we had been promised lots of crocodiles - and we certainly saw lots, including an amazing show which John managed to get on his camera on video. One of the large crocs had caught a huge barramundi (local fish) and one of his buddies wanted to share. Croc #1 took off with the fish which was way too big for him to swallow. So he took it to the shallows where he reared up and smashed the fish on the bank to break it up. He managed to break the head off and took it off to eat it, leaving most of the fish on the bank for croc #2 to pick up. He also did the "smash the fish" thing which was very scary to watch! Apart from the action, we also saw tons of birds, including a very rare little kingfisher called imaginatively the small kingfisher, and the Jesus bird which walks on water (very long toes and very light-weight bird).
John has taken some wonderful photographs (please set aside about a week when we get home to see them all) including some lovely pictures of us in our sunglasses and fetching hats, covered with fly nets! The title of most of these photos will be "These people are TOURISTS"!
We are off to Alice Springs tomorrow and have 3 days there before we set off on another camping trip to Uluru.