On Day 3 in Kakadu I was moving on to Cooinda, so on my way there I was going to the Nourlangie area. Here you find rock art, a lookout and the Anbangbang Billabong. What a terrific name.
I started by walking around the rock art sites. It was quite busy at the rock art sites, although hardly bus loads crowded. It was just annoying to have so many people about. I’d got used to having plenty of peace and quiet in Australia. The art sites were impressive. According to Aboriginal law you couldn’t alter previous rock art, but you were allowed to paint over it.
I loved the depictions of the kangaroos and lizards and there were also some figures including the elaborate lightning man, Namarrgon. He was pictured with his wife, Barrginj and they brought lightning to the area, which was very important for Kakadu. Lightning is one of the distinct seasons in Kakadu, it created natural bush fires that were needed to regulate the land. There was also a depiction of the evil Nabulwinjbulwinj, a spirit who ate females.
The kangaroos in the rock art were fabulous, there was one picture of a big kangaroo and another depicted a kangaroo hunt where the hunter has caught one kangaroo and has it behind him with the kangaroo’s paws tied so it can’t escape and the hunter is attempting to lasso another kangaroo ahead who is desperately trying to escape.
I walked to the highest spot to look out around the park and again was impressed by how beautiful it was. A lot of people come here and look at the rock art and then move on, so consequently there were very few people on the hike round to the other side of the rock to see the view across the plain.
I then drove down the road to Anbangbang Billabong and the lookout. It was getting hot now and it said the climb to the lookout was going to take 40 minutes. It sounded like it was quite a steep climb, so I decided to hike around the Anbangbang Billabong first.
The Anbangbang Billabong was 2.5km in circumference. It was a completely flat path. However, I was very nervous about crocodiles. The warnings were not to get too close to the water because estuarine crocodiles were likely to be in the billabong and to be vigilant when the path went closer to the water! Was this actually safe? Or was I about to become a crocodile’s dinner? I assumed that if it really was that dangerous they wouldn’t allow you to hike around the billabong at all. So I decided to brave it for an hour and take my chances and hope I wasn’t unlucky today.
I didn’t see any crocodiles, but the chances of me spotting any were remote anyway. To begin with, they’re really well camouflaged, they’re virtually invisible in the water. And as well as that I’m rubbish at spotting wildlife! Thankfully the crocodiles didn’t see me either!
There was a bit of bird life as I started out my hike, but when I got around to the other side of the billabong I was in for a treat. Firstly there was a jabiru which is a big stork. When I first saw one on the Corroboree Billabong I thought what a wonderful bird it was. Now I was seeing another one. The only way to tell the sex of a jabiru is by its eyes. A male has black eyes, a female has yellow eyes. I wasn’t close enough to this one to be able to see the colour of its eyes! And I wasn’t getting any closer either, it was in the water where crocodiles could be. Crocodiles generally don’t bother with birds as they are hard to digest, although if they’re hungry enough they will eat them. I would certainly be easier for a crocodile to digest, so I stayed on the path as I tried to get some good photos of the jabiru.
However, as I walked further along I saw a mob of emus. I have checked, mob is the correct collective noun for emus. I didn’t even know that they had emus this far north, so it was quite a thrill to see them in the wild. They were quite happy to walk around grazing, so I got some excellent photos of them. After I’d got enough photos and watched them for long enough I continued my hike around the billabong and my trepidation about the crocodiles re-emerged. I was so pleased when I finally saw the path back to the car park.
I was so hot now and needed to cool off, so I drove slowly to the lookout car park with the air conditioning on to try and cool down before I attempted this uphill hike to the lookout.
There had been no need for me to worry. This was a very short hike and it wasn’t a difficult and steep hike either, certainly nothing like the one at Ubirr which is what I was expecting. It was a pleasant view, but it wasn’t as spectacular as some I’d seen in Kakadu. It was time for me to go to my hotel.
When I got to Cooinda, there’d been a mistake with the booking. They’d got me in a glamping tent. That wasn’t what I’d signed up for. I’d booked a standard room with a queen bed. I took a look at the “glamping tent”. It was a tent. It had a nicer bed in it than the other places I’d stayed, but it was still a tent. I’d still have to blunder outside in the middle of the night with a torch searching for the toilets. They said they had a queen room as well if I’d like to look at that and upgrade. I went back to reception and said I’d have the room. I told the assistant manager, I’d had enough of tents. I think he could tell I wasn’t impressed. £125 for the night to sleep in a tent where I had to search for the toilets with a torch in the middle of the night. I don’t think so!
That evening I just needed to relax. It seemed to be getting hotter and more humid, so I got some wine during happy hour and ate celery and cream cheese and just enjoyed being in a nice hotel room. I certainly couldn’t have faced another night in a tent. When I went to the glamping tent which had a comfortable bed but nothing else, I couldn’t even see where the toilet and shower block was from there. I could just imagine me stumbling around outside with a torch in the middle of the night desperately looking for the toilet block.
Next morning I was going on the Yellow Water Billabong cruise. I’d done so many boat trips I was wondering if this might be one too many, but it was a brilliant trip. It’s difficult to say what the best one was, they all had their merits, but I think this one did have the edge. We saw so much wildlife and Rachel from Texas who was our guide was very enthusiastic when she saw anything.
We saw two jabirus, a male and a female, some herons that are usually very shy and fly off quickly, an anhinga – a snake necked darter bird, spoonbills and, of course, lots of crocodiles.
The first crocodile we saw, when she opened her mouth was actually yawning, even though when you show people photos you have to pretend that she’s ready to snap. Apparently it takes a lot of effort for crocodiles to open their mouths, so that’s when they’re at the most dangerous and ready to strike. A crocodile with a half open mouth can be deadly. We got really close to the crocodiles and saw a couple of big males.
Like I never tire of seeing bears in Canada, I never got tired of seeing crocodiles. These are the animals people come to the Top End to see. There are no cuddly koalas up here, no wombats and I didn’t see many kangaroos either. So the crocodiles are the icons of the Top End Outback and what everyone wants to see up close. And when you see them up close they are huge. It’s difficult to see when they’re in the water, but when they’re out of the water and especially if they’re making the effort to jump up you can see they have absolutely enormous bodies.
Rachel, our guide, tended to use aboriginal names where she could and always referred to the crocodiles as ginga which is the local aboriginal name for the estuarine crocodiles. We saw a crocodile chomping on what was apparently a file snake, although I couldn’t tell what she was eating, which I was actually quite grateful for. These snakes live in the water and aren’t poisonous but they are quite big. The Aboriginals eat them. They catch them and then kill them by biting their heads off. That will probably give me nightmares for weeks. And possibly you too. You’re welcome.
In the distance was also a herd of feral water buffalo. They are not native to the area, they were introduced to supply meat to remote northern settlements and have spread across the northern floodplain. They were all but eliminated from Kakadu National Park by the end of the 20th century, but are now back in the park in huge numbers causing a lot of damage to the floodplain.
All in all it was a fabulous cruise. I had some breakfast and then I headed back out to Yellow Water to do some hiking. However, the hiking trails appeared to have been fenced off, all I could do was a short walk on an elevated metal walkway and back again. I wasn’t that bothered. It really was very hot and I was getting quite disenchanted doing long distance walks in 35 degrees with no shade.
Instead I went to the cultural centre which was really interesting and gave a lot more information about the local Aboriginals. There are lots of different aboriginal tribes all over Australia, they even had them in Tasmania because much like the native Americans who walked across the Bering Land Bridge, Tasmania was connected to Australia at one point and the Aborigines were in Australia at that time. The ones who were in Tasmania and then got cut off when Tasmania became an island.
Most people associate aborigines with the Northern Territory and particularly the Tropical North which seems to be their homeland.
The tribes here use the didgeridoo because the trees they use to make them grow in this region. They don’t hollow out the trees, they’re already hollow when they make the didgeridoo. It is an instrument of the tribes in the Tropical North. If you go to the Red Centre of Australia, anyone playing a didgeridoo would usually be white, the Aborigines there don’t play it, it’s not their instrument, the trees they use to make it don’t grow there. In fact, in the Red Centre, they don’t have many trees at all!
One thing I did do at the cultural centre was make a bangle out of pandanus tree with an old Aboriginal lady, Violet. She’d started them off and I just decorated mine with different coloured fibres from the tree which had been dyed naturally using local plants. I ended up with a bangle of yellow, orange and purple. It was special because I’d sat with Violet and some other tourists, including a few children and made a bangle out of traditional materials. It’s not something I would normally buy or wear, looking at it, you might even say it looks quite tatty. But I sat in Kakadu National Park with an Aboriginal lady and threaded myself a bangle. That made it special.
And now it was time for me to leave Kakadu National Park for my next adventure to the Katherine Gorge. Kakadu was very special and will always remain my favourite place on this trip to Oz. Anyone who tells you not to go, ignore them. But do yourself a favour and don’t just come here on a day trip from Darwin. Instead spend a few days here to soak up the atmosphere and appreciate the beauty of the largest National Park in Australia.
I travelled to the Top End of the Northern Territory in early August 2019.
I took the sunrise Yellow Water Cruise which departed from Cooinda Lodge. The tour costs $100AUD. I booked through Kakadu Tourism an indigeneous owned group offering tours, cultural experiences and accommodation.
I visited the Warradjan Culture Centre before leaving Kakadu which is located just a few kilometres from Cooinda Lodge.
I stayed at Cooinda Lodge which is managed by the Accor Group. A night in a deluxe room cost me around £150. There was a mistake in my booking, so I paid a reduced upgrade fee for my room. You can book a room direct with Accor or through the Kakadu National Park website. It is also on several hotel booking websites.
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 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
Read about my time in Purnululu National Park