Kakadu National Park

December signalled the start of a month of holidays, which were very welcome indeed. Instead of racing straight home to South Australia for Christmas, I decided to see a bit of Australia I had never seen. I've travelled so much away from Australia, that I sometimes feel a bit guilty for not seeing my own country. However, for once in my life I had enough money in my bank account to support such travel so I thought I would make the most of it!

I flew from Jakarta to Denpasar in Bali, where I transferred to another flight from Denpasar to Darwin. That flight was quite traumatic for 2 reasons:
1) I have never been so embarassed of being Australian. The flight was packed with all sorts of stereotypical Aussies, nearly all of whom were wearing a Bintang (the Indonesian beer) singlet, most of whom had their hair freshly braided, and most of whom had obviously come straight from the pub to the airport. I know Bali is a great, and cheap getaway for thousands of Australians, and I might be being overly judgemental here, but it was horrifying. Two "ladies", probably around my age, had a conversation in which they said how f*****g great it was to leave the f*****g kids with the f*****g babysitter while they got f*****g s***-faced on cheap cocktails by the pool. F*****g awesome. Lovely.
2) I THINK I had the chance to hook-up with a nice cabin attendant (air hostess), but I might be wrong. After all, I'm not exactly Ralph Fiennes. We talked quite a lot as she had to sit opposite me at the emergency exit. When approaching landing, she asked me where I was staying in Darwin that night/morning (arriving 3am) and I said I was going to sleep in my hire-car for a few hours. She then said that she was headed home to her nice, cosy bed, and I'm sure I detected an "ask the question" tone at the end. However, under the pressure of having a super-bogan sitting next to me listening to every word, I chickened out and let it slide. Maybe I'm wrong about the whole thing but either way - regret! It was very hot in the hire-car, even at 4am!

Anyway, the flight arrived successfully, and I collected myself some duty-free booze, sorted out my hire-car, and had a nice little nap for a few hours. I then did some shopping for supplies, bought myself a SIM card and took off towards Kakadu National Park.

Before I go on, I will give a little plug to a phone company. That does not happen often. However, I was EXTREMELY happy with the deal I got with Optus while in Australia. I bought a pre-paid SIM card for $2 to put into my existing handset. I then had to pay $2 per day that I actually used the phone. That meant I got to make as many phone calls (within Australia) as I wanted, and send as many SMSs as I wanted, without ever paying more than the $2 for the day. Normally when in Australia my mobile is costing me that much that I can't have a normal conversation using the phone, as I'm in such a hurry to hang-up. This was a nice change and meant I could talk for hours to friends and family all around the country. Thanks Optus for making my trip home much easier, and cheaper. Plug finished.

So, I drove to Kakadu National Park, where I spent the day at the Visitors Centre and doing a couple of little walks. The town I was in had no budget accommodation available, and being the tight-arse that I am when travelling, I refused to pay $150 for one night in a bed. My tent was not tough enough to hold-up to the Kakadu wet-season so I decided to sleep in the car. After a few hours I discovered that this was rather difficult, as it was very warm. So I headed to the local bar (sports club) for a few beers and a game or two of pool. Four beers put me to sleep nicely, and only cost me $20!

Day 2 in Kakadu started with another couple of walks. Many of the driving tracks are closed in the wet season, limiting where you can go. In addition, many of the walks are closed as the water levels in the billabongs are higher, meaning that crocodiles could end up much closer to walking tracks. Stupidly, I decided to ignore some of the warning signs as I wanted to see a billabong - I am Australian after all. I walked along the track to the billabong where the track disappeared and I decided I'd just walk 20 metres around to the right to get a better view of the hills nearby. I heard a large commotion nearby and looked up to see a crocodile swimming through the reeds AWAY from me and out into the billabong. I must have scared him, and I was very lucky he went that direction. He would only have been 8 or 10 metres away maximum when he moved. I was on dry land so I may have escaped, but it would have been 50-50. If you look VERY CLOSELY at the 2nd photo above you can see his head in the reeds as he swims away. Nice billabong anyway.
That afternoon I used my savings from the previous evening (and a bit more) to take a scenic flight over the park. It was spectacular, and highly recommended. Although the park is beautiful at ground level, it is difficult to get any perspective of it. From up in the air you get to see the whole landscape, the thunder-storms all around, the escarpment (cliff-face) that separates Arnhem Land from Kakadu, the waterfalls you can't access in wet season and the Ranger Uranium mine. It was well worthwhile. In the evening I drove down to Cooinda, running over at least 30 or 40 cane-toads along the way. Those little buggers are everywhere. I found some budget accommodation and settled in for the night.

Day 3 began with a "Yellow Water Cruise" very early in the morning. We spotted at least a dozen crocodiles and hundreds of birds of all shapes and sizes. 2 crocodiles were having a territorial dispute that involved a bit of argy-bargy in the water near the boat, and at one point one of the crocs had a snap at the boat which caused some excitement. It was a lovely cruise, and despite being well over-priced, it did give an opportunity to see much more than you would without spending the cash. However, don't start me on the "compulsory breakfast" that we all had to pay for but nobody wanted! After the cruise I visited a nearby Aboriginal centre and headed out of the park, passing hundreds of enormous termite mounds along the way. That night I headed for Litchfield National Park.