Kakadu is a World Heritage listed National park covering 20,000 square kms and you can see why. It is exceptionally beautiful, has amazing biodiversity (with 1600 plant varieties and 10,000 insect species), unusual landforms, different habitats and wildlife galore. We particularly loved the Southern part of Kakadu, and couldn’t get over the number of different types of frogs we spotted whilst here.
We have been mesmerized by the Aboriginal rock art all throughout the top end and Kakadu is no exception, - it is estimated that there are 5,000 rock art sites in Kakadu alone, although some are easily accessible such as Ubir, Noulangie Rock, and Nanguluwur, - most of course are either not readily reachable or are sacred sites.
Each day we would load up the back packs, and head off to explore areas of Kakadu from the beautiful billabongs covered in pink water lilies at Yellow Waters and Mamukala that abounded with vast flocks of magpie geese and other water birds; to the magnificent Jim Jim Falls, (at which there was a challenging rock scramble to get to the falls, and Steve who had his “good Samaritan” - nurse hat on, ministered to one poor walker who had fallen and landed nose first onto some rocks), not to mention the wonderful Gunlom and Maguk plunge pools. From the sandstone cliffs and shady monsoonal forest pools of Gubara, the Falls plunging over rocky gorges and water pools fringed with paper bark trees, Pandanus and cycads, to the towering escarpments with jagged peaks dotted with ancient rain forest – it was all spectacular.
The pervading smell however is that of smoke as, at this time of year the park management does patchwork burning to encourage new growth and to decrease the danger of wild bush fires.
We have seen our first saltwater crocodiles ‘in the wild’, including one 7 meter ‘monster’ sized croc. Although hunted to near extinction in the 50’s and 60’s, since their protection in 1971 the esturine population has recovered dramatically and we have seen quite a number during our time in the park.
Although we saw evidence of water Buffelo (we spotted some hoof prints – we were practicing our super sleuthing), we didn’t actually see one, so can’t tick this off our “to see” list.
