31st – Nourlangie and Yellow Waters

We started our day with a walk around Nourlangie, an area of Kakadu used extensively by the Aboriginals for thousands of years, and you can see why.  It has a huge mountain surrounded by cool cave / shelter areas and beautiful views:

All around are cave paintings of local scenes such as kangaroos:

And dancing!

 

We attended a talk run by the local ranger about the Aboriginal ‘Skin Groups’ which define who can marry who, and are still used today.  It was an interesting insight into the complexity of the local culture.

We have had a bit of trouble trying to get information or tours run by Aboriginal people, but today we had a great tour of Yellow Water, a wetland floodplain, run by a local man who knew huge amounts about the local flora and fauna, culture and CROCODILES!!

Highlights of the boat tour included two Jabirus performing a mating dance on a tree beside the river:

 Seeing ‘Jesus Birds’ – a tiny water bird with massive feet, along with his 6 day old chicks walking around on the water weed, and (of course) seeing several large salt water crocodiles lazing on the bank and swimming beside the boat:

We were a bit early in the season yet to be able to walk down to the boat because the carpark is still flooded from the wet season and several large crocodiles currently live in it!  Instead we were taken by bus to a caged walk way over the water which led to the boats.  I must say it did reinforce the fact that crocodiles are not to be messed with!

30th – Edith Falls, Drive to Kakadu

We took a lovely walk to Edith Falls this morning. They are really quite beautiful:

Then it was in the car again and off to Kakadu National Park.  After entering the park we thought we would stay at a campground… We then visited the campground which was about 10 metres away from a crocodile infested river that was so swollen it over ran the road in some places… So we are staying in a lovely powered caravan park miles away from water in Jabiru instead!!  We had a lovely swim in the pool and kicked the footy this afternoon.  We are here for 3 nights so we can give the long haul driving a bit of a break which will be nice.

Mum asked me whether I remember Edith Falls from my last trip (when I was 2), but I don’t.  What I do remember was playing ‘driving’ with Kim in the car.  It is amazing that after 850km in the car over the last few days, all Lachlan and Cooper wanted to do when we got here was play in the car!

29th – Kununurra to Edith Falls

On the road again today for another big drive.  Beautiful country again.  We passed by Gregory National Park which looks like it would be worth a visit on a different journey.  We have now passed out of Western Australia and into the Northern Territory:

To prove how good our pack up routine is now, given our months of practice, we had to stop to change Lachlan’s nappy during our journey, hopped back in the car, and drove 150km with our caravan door locked wide open!  What idiots!!  We can’t quite work out how that happened and how we didn’t notice it.  Luckily the inside of the caravan was in solid lockdown so amazingly nothing was lost (other than a bit of pride).

We stopped in a at Katherine for a quick restock of the larder, and have finished at Nitmiluk National Park, 50km north of Katherine.  We will have a look at Edith Falls tomorrow.

28th – Kununurra

Our original plan was to move on today, but we decided to stay in Kununurra instead and check out the local attractions.  I’m glad we did too!

We started the day going to Hidden Valley in the Mirima National Park.  It was a lovely walk, very pretty and similar in structure to the Bungle Bungles but only a 10 minute drive from our caravan park. 

From there we went to the Zebra Rock Gallery, where they mine the Zebra Rock.  It is really different to any rock I have seen elsewhere with light and dark rock in alternating layers.  We purchased a few items from here, a pendant for myself and a Zebra rock with a Wedge Tailed Eagle painted on it.

Outside the Gallery in the Ord river were loads of catfish (one of them a metre long), and archer fish.  So when you held out a largish piece of bread, they shot water at it.  Justin and Jack managed to get themselves shot in the face by the fish!  The kids loved it.

After some scones and milkshakes being watched by the local peacock, it was the playground and then on to Lake Argyle, the largest man made lake in Australia.

We didn’t manage to make it to Lake Argyle because there were loads of grass fires all along the road in.  It didn’t seem to affect the local traffic but it made me a bit nervous and also caused MASSES of smoke which obscured the view considerably.  Therefore it was pointless going to look at the views at Lake Argyle so we turned around and went back to the caravan park for a swim. On the upside, the smoke made for a lovely sunset.

Big drive to Kakadu tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

27th – Kununurra

Today we drove to Kununurra from the Bungle Bungles.  It was again an absolutely beautiful drive, with mountains, boab trees and lovely scenery every way we looked.  Fantastic!

We had heard that the Kununurra Muster was on, and we made it in time for the street party.  We had a great afternoon there from 3 till 7, Jack designed and screen printed a t-shirt:

 Jack and Cooper both went on the jumping castle and ferris wheel:

and they all loved the clown/juggler/fire swinging act:

At the end a band came on and the kids danced in the street like there was no tomorrow.  It was all glorious until the fireworks we promised them ended up being planned for NEXT Sunday!  Woops!! 

Oh well, we did have a great day though!