I spent 6 weeks in Australia over July and August in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. If anyone asked me my favourite place on this journey through central Australia, I would answer, without hesitation, Kakadu National Park. And if anyone asked me my favourite place in Kakadu, again without hesitation, I would reply, Gunlom Falls.
However, all of Kakadu was magical and as I spent a few days there, I can’t fit everything about Kakadu in one post. So I’m dividing it into three parts to represent the 3 days I stayed in the National Park.
I was very excited to be Kakadu bound. It was interesting as I was driving from Corroboree to Kakadu and then through Kakadu National Park, recalling reading about people complaining about how boring the drive and the road is. All I can say is, they haven’t been to South Australia and driven the Oodnadatta Track!
The Oodnadatta Track is intensely boring and it’s hard to concentrate on driving because everything looks the same. It’s all flat and it’s all the same colour. You can barely distinguish the road from the surrounding land.
In Kakadu you have trees. You have rivers. Proper rivers, ones with water in them. Not the pretend rivers they have in the centre of Australia where they call them rivers if they have a dribble of water in them once every 30 years. I suppose if you haven’t done much driving anywhere else in Australia, are unprepared for the vast distances and all you see is trees for a hundred kilometres, you might consider it boring. But when it takes you all day to drive 300km on an appalling gravel road through nothing, where the road and landscape both look exactly the same, driving in Kakadu is a pleasure in comparison. It was certainly a pleasure for me. I loved it!
I arrived at the resort where I was staying. My room wasn’t ready, but they gave me one where no one had stayed the night before so it was already clean. I dropped off my stuff in the room.
The Anbinik Resort was disappointing. I’d been staying at a lot of places where I had to share a bathroom. These varied from walking down a hallway to fishing out my torch to try and blunder my way through the darkness to an outside building, hoping not to come across any nasty animals on the way.
Anyway at the Anbinik Resort it was another toilet that I had to go outside to. Unfortunately when you’re travelling for a relatively long time in remote areas, it’s expensive and unless you’re a millionaire, some of the accommodation you have to stay at to be there is pretty basic. I am not a millionaire. Do you know who pays for Yorkshire Hayley? Yorkshire Hayley!
I do not get sponsorship for anything. But it means I can be brutally honest and not have to put meaningless disclaimers into my posts about staying as a guest invited by such and such resort but my opinions are my own. What a load of nonsense! If someone is giving you accommodation for free, firstly you’ll get the best available and secondly you’re hardly going to slam it, are you? No one else would invite you to stay for free if you had a reputation for pulling accommodation to pieces on your blog would they?
Anyway the Anbinik Resort was a bit like a youth hostel. There was a fridge and kettle in my room, but there was a shared kitchen area between 6 rooms. There was a shared toilet and shower that I had to go outside to that was shared between 3 rooms. I only stayed long enough to drop off my stuff and then I drove to Ubirr for the Guluyambi Cultural Cruise.
The cruise is owned by Aboriginals and they take you down the inaccurately named East Alligator River. It’s inaccurately named because there are no alligators in the river. They’re crocodiles. But in 1820 when the area was being explored by Lieutenant King, there was no distinction between crocodiles and alligators and the lieutenant mistakenly believed the creatures to be alligators. And no one bothered to change the name of the river when it was realised that the animals were crocodiles.
Robbie was our guide, he used to be in all the promotional photos so he was known as George, as in George Clooney! He was very softly spoken so I couldn’t hear everything he said, but I caught quite a lot. It was a very interesting cruise. Very different to the others I’d been on.
Australia is well known for its unique animals. Everyone wants to see a kangaroo or a koala when they visit Australia and when you’re in the Top End, what everyone wants to see are big crocodiles!
Robbie said there were about 3000 crocodiles in the river, so swimming was absolutely not an option. We saw plenty of crocodiles and they were big. I was happy. I saw a lot of crocodiles in the Top End and I never got tired of seeing them. Even if they are very scary!
You can barely see the crocodiles in the river which is amazing considering the size of some of them. They have excellent camouflage which is why they’re successful hunters and so dangerous to humans. As with most animals, if they were brightly coloured and stood out, they wouldn’t be much good at hunting because everything would see them from a mile off. And these crocodiles can and will kill and eat people. At this time of year, in August, the height of the Dry Season, they’re particularly hungry because water levels are well down and most of the fish have been eaten already. So no matter how hot it is, getting into the water is a really bad idea!
The Aboriginals did use to get into the water and cross the river when they were allowed to kill crocodiles. But as crocodiles were almost hunted to extinction, you now aren’t allowed to kill crocodiles unless you are in mortal danger. So swimming across the river is no longer allowed as the likelihood of having to kill a crocodile to save yourself is fairly high.
The name Guluyambi is an Aboriginal word that means paperbark raft.
Robbie told us a lot about the versatility of the paperbark tree, the bark used for making containers to drink from or carry things in, for mattresses, and it could be used to make a raft to cross the river. However, making a raft took two and a half hours and only carried 3 people.
The dead were also wrapped in paperbark and the grieving process was a very long one. I didn’t get it all, but I think he said they wrapped the body and left it until it exploded so the spirit could be free before they buried it.
We had a brief stop on the opposite side of the river to the Aboriginal owned Arnhemland. We had a bit of a walk round and I had some photos taken of me standing on various rocks. Hayley in Arnhemland!
Robbie welcomed us to Arnhemland on behalf of the Aboriginal owners and from there, before we got back on the boat, he demonstrated how far he could throw a spear if he used a tool to launch it from. It was the same concept as a bow and arrow, the arrow travels much further if you launch it from the bow than if you threw the arrow by hand. The spear fitted into a small pole that was held like a javelin and then the spear was launched from this pole holder. When Robbie threw it, it went right across to the other side of the river. That was impressive.
After the cruise, since I was so close, I went to the Ubirr rock art site. It would save me another 80km round trip another day. I still had time this afternoon.
It was a fairly short walk around the rock art sites Ubirr. The rock art depicts traditional stories, the Rainbow Serpent was a particularly important symbol who travelled through the area in human form. Stories about the Rainbow Serpent could be found all over Kakadu. The rock art here in Kakadu was very well preserved and very colourful, especially compared to what I’d seen around Uluru. It was clearer and brighter, so much easier to make out the figures. It was considered disrespectful to erase rock art, however, subsequent generations were permitted to paint on top of the existing art, so there were some instances where more recent art had been superimposed onto an earlier drawing.
The main thing was the climb to the top of the rocks to Nadab Lookout. It was quite a steep climb in places and although there is a marked path, there are several ways to get to the top of the rocks. It is an amazing spot to climb to and I would say that you really should not miss this. I was rewarded with a fabulous 360 degree view.
This was a spot I recognised from Crocodile Dundee and I completely understand why they chose this spot for the film. It was lush greenery in one direction and dramatic rock formations in the other.
I could see quite a lot of smoke from the top of Nadab Lookout. This made the view even more dramatic. The reason for the smoke was because managed fires were deliberately set during the Dry Season to better control the National Park during the Build Up when there is no rain, but frequent thunderstorms and the lightning strikes that come with them. Without the managed burning of some areas during the Dry Season, it was possible that a lightning strike could start an uncontrollable fire that would rage through the Park. These fires also tend to be much hotter than earlier in the Dry Season. The Aboriginals had done this for thousands of years and it was still a very effective way of controlling fires during the Build Up.
A lot of people came up here for sunset. As I wasn’t allowed to drive my car after sunset, I couldn’t stay here for that, besides which, when anywhere is supposed to be a good place to watch the sunset you get about 3 million tourists up there, which does rather spoil the atmosphere. I was happy to be up here in the afternoon instead.
I had been worried about hiking in Kakadu. I thought it might be too hot to be comfortable, but I was surprised at how pleasant the conditions were. There was no denying it was hot, but hiking in the Top End was infinitely better than in the Red Centre. There was some shade in places and the insects weren’t bad at all. I would certainly recommend that you get out and do some hiking in Kakadu, even if you only do some short hikes otherwise you will be hugely missing out. A mix of hikes, cruises and driving is a good way to appreciate what Kakadu has to offer.
I’d only been here half a day and I’d already fallen in love with Kakadu National Park.
I travelled to the Top End of the Northern Territory in early August 2019.
I went on the Guluyambi Cultural Cruise along the East Alligator River. The cruise operates 4 times a day during the Dry Season and costs $79AUD. The cruise has a maximum of 25 guests on each departure. It takes approximately 45 minutes to drive to the boat ramp near Ubirr from Jabiru.
I visited the Ubirr Rock Art site in the East Alligator Area of Kakadu National Park. The park website has lots of information about the walks in around the park.
You need to buy a pass to enter Kakadu National Park. The pass is valid for 7 days and costs $25AUD in the Dry Season. You can buy the pass online from the Parks Australia website.
I stayed in the Anbinik Resort in Jabiru. I booked this through Tourism Top End who offer instant confirmation and secure server bookings. When I booked in February 2019, Tourism Top End charged a fee for using credit cards.
I drove to Kakadu National Park from Darwin. I rented a car from Bargain Car Rentals in Darwin. I booked this through Tourism Top End who have special deals with several car hire agencies in Darwin including offering unlimited kilometres which is rare in the Northern Territory. Please note that driving hire cars on unpaved roads without a 4WD vehicle is not permitted.
Read about my other days in Kakadu National Park
Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong
Read about my time in Purnululu National Park
