Day 22: Off to Kakadu!
After a good night of sleep and a huge breakfast at the Gorge information centre, we found some time to admire the resident Wallabiesat this place, even though we are still unsure what kind they were. They were still enjoying the morning coolness as we left, on a day which promised to be hotter than yesterday. We eventually hit 34 degrees!
Along the way to Katherine, you’ll find Pine Creek, a typical Gold Mining Town, along the railroad from Darwin all the way down to Adelaide. We paused in the town for a while, overlooked their now defunct open pit gold mine, and found ourselves right in the middle of a huge flock of Flying Foxes! As it was nearing midday, they were also hot and flapping one wing to stay cool. We estimate there were several hundred animals roosting in the trees surrounding us!
Pine Creek sits on the intersection between the Stuart Highway and the Kakadu Highway, and we took a right turn onto the Kakadu Highway, which leads to the Kakadu National Park. We drove along it to find a place called Cooinda, which our GPS knew nothing about. It turns out it is not a place after all, but a single resort big enough to get its own signage. As we are very close to the wet season over here, not all roads are accessible yet, and a few have very deep wading points where the river crosses the road and you have to drive through the river to get on the other side on the road. We wanted, for instance, to visit a few falls, but found ourselves having to cross 75 cm deep water. Even though we drive a big 4×4 rental, we decided this was not for us and backed away.
As this threw our schedule for today, we arrived at the resort a little early. But, as the resort offers one of our favorite things to do, not all was lost. We booked a boat tour to view wildlife. What else? 🙂 It was to be the sunset tour, where you not only got to see hordes of aquatic birds, but also a magnificent sunset where the sun sets behind the floodplains of Yellow Water, or the Jim Jim Billabong as they know it over here. During the tour, we have seen three sizes of Egret (Little, Intermediate and Great), at least three varieties of Heron, Whistling Ducks, Jabiru (Black-necked Stork), a White Headed Sea Eagle, White Bellied Eagle, a good bunch of Estuarine Crocodiles (Salties) and even some pretty rare feral horses nowadays know as magnificent Brumbies. All in all, an afternoon really well spent!
There is one downside though: the airpnditioning in our cabin is way too underpowered to be of any use, as it cannot keep it cool below 28 degrees. With the high humidity over here, that’ll be fun tonight! We are only staying here one night, and will move s few kilometres north tomorrow to a place called Jabiru.
