Category: Australia

I was so looking forward to going to Purnululu National Park. I had planned my whole trip to Australia around my visit to see the black and orange beehive domes of the Bungle Bungle ranges, this was somewhere I really wanted to see.

Sadly, my time in the Kimberley was hardly a roaring success. Problem after problem after problem was what I encountered initially. A series of bungles you might say.

Thankfully I’m a generally positive person and looking back, I remember the highlights with satisfaction and don’t think too much about the things that went wrong.  Any experiences at the time that were tainted by problems along the way have disappeared into the recesses of my memory. But I have recorded them all, just as a reminder.

The problems started when I arrived in Kununurra on a Sunday morning and just about everything was shut. I had no car, it was horrendously hot, so walking very far wasn’t really possible. All in all it was a bit of a dead day. But the next day I was going into Purnululu National Park which I was really looking forward to.

I picked up the hire car, nowhere near as nice as the one I’d had in South Australia or in Darwin either, for that matter. It was a Mitsubishi Pajero that had done over 50,000 kilometres and had no USB port for charging my phone which was a nuisance. It also wasn’t very clean. I hadn’t had such a great car in Alice Springs with Thrifty either, maybe they were a company best avoided in the future.

I drove through the Kimberley and saw the baobab trees that Madagascar is famous for, but they do have them here in Australia too. No one quite knows how they got to Australia, but you see quite a lot of them dotted in amongst the other trees. In August the ones out by the road didn’t have any leaves on them, the ones in Kununurra had obviously been watered so they did have leaves on them. But by the side of the road, in the harsh, rainless dry season, there was no water to keep the leaves alive.

I didn’t know what the road to the Bungles would be like, I didn’t think it could be any worse than the Oodnadatta Track. And actually, it didn’t seem quite as bad. The 4WD on this Mitsubishi seemed better than on the Toyota, I didn’t seem to be sliding on the gravel like I had been on the Oodnadatta Track when it was really corrugated. I could keep up a steady 40kph which I was happy with because this road, unlike the Oodnadatta Track, was not a straight road. There were lots of twists and turns and ups and downs on this road. I could tell where the water crossings would be at the end of the wet season,. But it took me less than 2 hours to drive it, so I was happy with that.

I stopped at the Visitor Centre to pay my National Park fee and noticed when I went to the toilet it said to close the toilet lid because frogs liked to go swimming in the toilet and frogs attracted snakes who liked to eat them. After that, all the time I was in the Kimberley I looked in the toilet for frogs and snakes before I used it.

I then drove towards the wilderness lodge, first driving to the airfield to try and organise a longer helicopter flight the following day. They had a call come in while I was there for a 42 minute flight at 11am, so I jumped onto that one. Little did I know.

Then I went to the wilderness lodge and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. I was very impressed with the friendly staff at the lodge, they all knew everyone’s name and it was very professional. I was shown to my accommodation for the next 3 nights. It was a tent. It was a large tent, it was a posh tent and it had a shower, basin and toilet in it and a floor. But it was still a tent. But if you came to the Bungles there wasn’t too much choice. You were either in a posh tent or a normal tent. So I’d chosen a posh tent. I was told there were blankets in the basket if I needed them because it got cold at night. I definitely needed them.

It was very cold at night. As I was on my own I could fold the blankets in half so I had a double blanket, so I had four layers of blankets on, but I was still cold. That was what really let the place down. Paying over $1000 for 3 nights I shouldn’t be freezing in bed at night. Even the really basic places I’d stayed had a heater in them. They needed to invest in heating the tents when people were paying that sort of money to stay there. You shouldn’t be sleeping really badly because you were so cold. The last night in particular was really bad and it was also bad at dinner because we were eating outdoors.  I had a cardigan on and was shivering and had to get myself a cup of tea to try and warm up, because there were a lot of people at dinner every night and service tended to be on the slow side. Not great when you’re sitting there shivering.

The wilderness lodge was very like an upmarket safari camp. Not that I’ve been on safari or stayed at a safari camp in Africa, but from what I’ve seen from brochures and the telly of upmarket safari camps, it looked like one. And I spoke to a lady who was originally from South Africa and had recently been on safari and she said that it was exactly like the safari camps in the Kruger.

People were generally very friendly who stayed at the lodge, they sat the groups together and then put the independent travellers on tables together. I didn’t talk too much at dinner at first, but I was sitting opposite Kristina and Marcus who were German. Kristina was originally from Hamburg and wanted to move back there, but Marcus was a Bavarian and a teacher in Munich and very much into the Bavarian way of life. I asked if they lived in the city and Kristina said they did, so I asked if they knew the Rattlesnake Saloon. And they did! They went there regularly to watch the bands and said a lot of people who lived in Munich didn’t know about it because it was in the suburbs. Marcus said originally there was nothing much in that area, just the Rattlesnake and then about 12 years ago they started building houses there and completely surrounded it. He asked me how I knew about it and I said I’d been trying to find country music in Germany and it came up on my search so I went there and had a fabulous night. I never expected to be in one of the remotest parts of Australia and be talking to someone about the marvellous Rattlesnake Saloon in Munich.

The dinner service was very slow that night. Pork was on the menu and the Austrian group staying at the lodge had all decided they wouldn’t eat it and so the chef had to make them all chicken instead. We were waiting ages.

Next day was my helicopter ride, but since it wasn’t until 11, I had time to go to the southern part of the park and walk the Domes trail and Cathedral Gorge. Maybe even the Piccaninny Gorge viewpoint.

I did manage to do the Domes and Cathedral Gorge walks. This was what the Bungles were famed for, the black and orange striped domes in the southern part of the park. I loved walking amongst the domes and Cathedral Gorge lived up to its name with towering rocks surrounding you. I took a few photos and then headed off. I didn’t have enough time to do Piccaninny.

It was only just half past nine when I passed the airstrip, I wasn’t supposed to be there until 10.30, far too early to go and wait. If only I’d known. I went back to the lodge, had a quick drink and then went to the airstrip getting there just before half past ten. Then I was told, the people booked on the 11 o’clock flight had turned up early and so they’d already left! I got a lot of excuses about why they hadn’t waited, but basically it came down to the staff not looking in the diary, always assuming that people are travelling in couples and forgetting about single travellers. He said I could go on the 12.30 flight which meant me waiting around for 2 hours. If I hadn’t really wanted to do the flight I would have told them to get stuffed. Unfortunately, although this company has such disregard for its single customers they were the only ones who had a commission to fly in the park. So if I wanted to go on the flight, I would have to go with them. 

I’d really got my heart set on it. I’d been emailing them since March to try and book the flight.  And because of the mistake I was offered 10% off. So I decided to go. But I still wasn’t happy. When the people who had arrived early got off the helicopter, the bloke said g’day to me. I just glowered at him!

The 12.30 flight didn’t go early either, so I was waiting a full 2 hours to get into the air. However, it was an amazing flight. Seeing the domes from the air and the gorges throughout the park was spectacular. They cover a huge area and if you’ve come all this way and driven lots of dirt roads to get here, the helicopter flight is a must, despite being run by people who don’t care about single travellers. If you’re in a couple you’ll be fine, if you’re a single traveller, good luck!

The brilliant thing about these helicopter flights is that the helicopters don’t have doors on them, so you’ve got no glass obscuring the side view. I got the front seat as well, I don’t know whether that was to placate me after leaving me behind or whether I would have got the front seat anyway. I tried to look on it positively, I got my wonderful aerial view of the Bungles and I got 10% off.

That afternoon I drove to the Northern part of the park to hike the Mini Palms Gorge Trail. This is supposed to be the most difficult trail in the park and it was the pick of the northern walks. There are palm trees in the Mini Palms Gorge. It took about 2 hours as the literature advised, but I did take some time taking photos. I set off at 2 o’clock, it wasn’t really a good idea to set off much later than that even though it was still very hot at this hour.

The lady in the Visitor Centre had said that you were in and out of shade on this hike. More out than in for the most part, until you got to the Gorge itself. The first part of the hike was easy, flat and in the sun. The second part of the hike takes you into the gorge where you see the palm trees and also have to battle your way through a narrowing Gorge to get to the end of the trail.

There are lots of big boulders on this hike and you do have to squeeze through gaps between boulders and climb over rocks to follow the trail. So I squeezed through gaps between the boulders and climbed over the rocks wondering where these steps were that had replaced the most difficult part of the trail that the lady at the visitor centre had told me about. Right at the end, it turned out. But it was quite challenging to get to these steps. However, it was a magical place and the few people in a tour group were just leaving so I then had the place to myself.

It was shaded and the palms were beautifully silhouetted against the sky. After a few minutes I started to make my way back and I could have sworn I heard someone rustling about in the undergrowth. I couldn’t see a thing. It might just have been a kangaroo, but I was thinking that I was all on my own here, probably the last person of the day and what if a backpacker murderer was lurking in the trees. I wasn’t a backpacker, but that might not stop him. It was spooky. The eerie noises continued. I just kept walking until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe it was my own fault for dismissing the Aboriginal superstitions as nonsense, maybe the spirits were getting their own back by scaring me a bit. They succeeded!

I had the clambering and squeezing to do again on my way back and I was relieved to get into the sunny and exposed part of the trail and out of the spooky rocks and trees. It had cooled down quite a bit by now as well. I did pass one bloke who was walking into the gorge as I was coming out. He was leaving it a bit late. I spent quite a bit of time with him the following day hiking to Whip Snake Gorge and found out that he finished the walk in the dark!

It was 4 o’clock when I got back to the car and so I decided I should drive back to the wilderness lodge. I didn’t really want to be driving these roads in the dark if I could help it. It wasn’t so good at dinner without the couple from Munich who had now departed and I tried not to dwell too much on the helicopter leaving me behind. The helicopter flight itself was great, seeing the Bungles from the air from the front seat of a helicopter with the doors off. And I’d enjoyed the walks I’d done today, the first sight of the domes as I hiked through them and the mini palms gorge walk even though I was squeezing through tight gaps and spooked by noises coming from the bushes!

The next day as I’d got the helicopter flight out of the way the day before I could concentrate on hiking for the whole day with no time constraints other than making sure I got my hiking done before it was dark and I set off to the southern part of the park to walk to Piccaninny Gorge lookout, the Window and Whip Snake Gorge which I wrote about in my previous post.

In the afternoon after a brief rest at the lodge I went back to the Northern part of the park to hike the Echidna Chasm Trail. I’d been to similar places in the States, the hike was initially walking along a dry creek bed until you got to a narrow canyon. It changes colour when the sunlight hits it in the late morning or early afternoon, but I was there a lot later than that so I missed it. It was okay. Certainly a long way down my list of best hikes in the park. That was probably because I’d not come at the optimum time to see the colour change when the sun was in the right position. But coming at this time I did have the place to myself.

It was so cold at the lodge that evening. The meals were all outdoors and it was a lot colder that night than it had been on other nights. The service was always very slow and sitting there shivering throughout the meal was not fun. It was just as bad in my tented cabin that night, even with two blankets doubled up over me I could not get warm. When they’re charging that amount of money, they really need to make sure that they have adequate heaters if people have to eat outdoors and they need to install heaters in the tented cabins as well. Being cold all night under the equivalent of four blankets was ridiculous. You don’t expect northern Australia to be so cold at night, even in winter, but this was far enough inland to have those extreme drops in temperature.

The final day I decided that I would do the Homestead Valley Hike that I hadn’t initially planned on doing, it was the only one I hadn’t done in the park now and I wanted to do them all. I noticed Joe’s camper was there who I hiked to Whip Snake Gorge with , so he must have been on the hike, he’d said he was going to do it.

The Homestead Valley Hike didn’t take very long. It was a fairly easy hike with a few steps, but generally it was quite fast walking. There were some aboriginal rock artworks located in the area, but there was no access to them. I presumed that the area where it said there was no access beyond that point was where the rock art was. Joe was at the end of the hike, we chatted a while and took a few photos and then hiked back together.

 Joe and I chatted about the hikes in the park. We’d both done them all, but Joe said he didn’t think many people were serious hikers like us. I didn’t actually think I was that much of a serious hiker, I only did day hikes, not long distance overnight hikes, but since most people seemed to walk the bare minimum, in comparison I suppose I am a serious hiker. I liked doing some of the hikes, and I was certainly keen to do less popular ones so that I didn’t meet a lot of people. In the Bungles there weren’t generally huge groups because the road into the park couldn’t accommodate big coaches, but even a group of 20 was too many for me. But you didn’t have to walk very far before you had the whole place to yourself, because even the tour groups didn’t walk that far.

The road out of the park seemed a lot worse than I remembered when I’d driven in. The whole time I’d been in the Bungles the graders had been out grading the road within the National Park, but they didn’t seem to have graded the road into the park. It wasn’t in great condition and it seemed to be slower going than when I’d driven in. I remember noticing when I drove into the park, how much better the road was than the ones I’d driven in South Australia, like the Oodnadatta Track and the Painted Desert Road, but driving out, I seemed to be driving more slowly, there seemed to be more twists and turns and ups and downs. It seemed to take forever. I kept looking at the mileage and counting the kilometres down and finally I was at the main road.

The drive back to Kununurra was fine. I was fascinated by the Baobab trees and stopped to take photos several times. Some of the trees were absolute monsters. It was quiet on the roads and no one much as stopping, so again, I had the places to myself and could set up the gorilla grip to take a few photos with me in them. I headed back towards the town.

As I said at the beginning of the post, I’d longed to see the Bungles for years. I’d built my Australian itinerary around going into Purnululu National Park. And while the incident with the helicopter trip had been annoying and I’d been cold at night, those memories do fade and all in all I was happy with my decision to go there. The drive into the park had been an adventure, there were some amazing hikes and the view from the air was fabulous. Kakadu National Park was the highlight of my Australian trip, but the Bungles weren’t far behind and I would recommend fitting Purnululu National Park in if you can. You just need to bear in mind, it’s remote, it’s expensive, it’s a journey to get there and has extremes of temperature. It can get very hot in the middle of the day, but it’s freezing at night!

I travelled to Purnululu National Park in August 2019.

The Domes Trail and Cathedral Gorge hikes are in the southern part of Purnululu National Park.  The Mini Palms Gorge Trail, Echidna Chasm Trail and Homestead Valley hikes are in the northern part of Purnululu National Park. These are all relatively short hikes that can be done in a maximum of a couple of hours.

It takes approximately 5 hours to drive from Kununurra to the Purnululu National Park entrance.  Approximately 3 hours is on the main tarmac road from Kununurra, the last 2 hours or so is on the 4WD road to the park entrance.  You must have a high clearance 4WD vehicle to drive on this road.

Entrance fee to Purnululu National Park for vehicles payable at the Visitor Centre is currently $13AUD.

I stayed in the Bungle Bungle Wilderness Lodge run by APT.  I stayed in a superior tented cabin with ensuite facilities.  A 3 night package of bed, breakfast and evening meal was $342AUD per night (approximately £185 per night).  This was a discounted rate available for a stay of 3 nights or more.  I booked directly with APT.

I did my open door helicopter flight with Helispirit. I did the Ultimate Bungle Bungle flight which is 42 minutes and currently costs $589AUD per person (approximately £335).

An excellent practical guide for the Kimberley Region is available from Kimberley Australia written by Birgit Bradtke. There is a free mini guide, but I also purchased the more in depth online guide that gives you all the information you need to self-drive to Purnululu National Park.

I rented my 4WD car from Thrifty at Kununurra Airport.  A 4 day rental cost $760AUD (approximately £420).

I flew to Kununurra from Darwin with Air North.  The flight takes one hour.  I paid £100 for my outbound flight and £145 for my return flight.  I booked my flights with Budget Air. 

Read about my favourite hike in Purnululu National Park

Whip Snake Gorge

Read my other posts about my time in Kakadu National Park in Australia

Kakadu and Arnhemland

Infinity at Gunlom Falls

Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong

Read about my surreal night at the Rattlesnake Saloon in Munich

As I recall my time in Oz in 2019, my favourite hike was the one to Whip Snake Gorge in Purnululu National Park, otherwise known as the Bungle Bungle.

I would thoroughly recommend this wonderful hike, but it isn’t exactly easily accessible.  Purnululu National Park is tucked away in the northeastern corner of Western Australia, a really long way from everywhere.  

The Kimberley is the least visited part of Australia, full of 4 wheel drive roads that are inaccessible for parts of the year due to flooding.  On some of the roads in this region you will always have sections where your vehicle will need a snorkel to enable you to drive through deep water, others like the road to the Bungles is dry in the height of winter, like when I travelled there in August.

I considered driving to the Bungles from Darwin, but a drive of over 1000km which would take over 12 hours was not appealing.  Instead I flew to Kununurra and rented a 4 wheel drive vehicle from there specifically to drive into Purnululu National Park.

It takes just under 3 hours to drive from Kununurra to the turn off for the Bungles, on a well maintained tarmac road where you can maintain a normal speed of around 100 kilometres an hour. 

Then I reached the road to the Bungles.  It was a 4WD only road and you have to drive for quite a distance on it before you even get to the boundary of the National Park itself.  The Visitor Centre is 53km along the road.  I didn’t know what the road to the Bungles would be like, but I had already driven a large section of the Oodnadatta Track in South Australis, so I didn’t think it could be any worse than that, which had been in really bad condition.  And actually, it didn’t seem quite as bad. I didn’t seem to be sliding on the gravel like I had been on the Oodnadatta Track in the sections where it was really corrugated. I could keep up a steady 40 kilometres per hour which I was happy with because this road, unlike the Oodnadatta Track, was not a straight road. There were lots of twists and turns and ups and downs on this road, I could tell where the water crossings would be at the end of the wet season. But it took me less than 2 hours to drive it, so I was happy with that.

I stayed at the Bungle Bungle Wilderness Lodge.  In my next post I’ll go into detail about it and some of my other experiences in Purnululu National Park, but for this post I’m just going to concentrate on detailing my favourite hike.

I had managed to do the other things I wanted to do in the Bungles so far, so I could concentrate on hiking for the whole day with no time constraints other than making sure I got my hiking done before it was dark.

I set off to the southern part of the park to walk to Piccaninny Gorge lookout, the Window and maybe Whip Snake Gorge. The entire return hike to Whip Snake Gorge is 10km and will take half a day.  I had initially intended to do all three hikes, but I wasn’t sure once I started, it was very hot and I didn’t know whether I had the energy in this heat. 

The southern part of Purnululu National Park is where you find the famous black and orange striped beehive domes that the park is famed for.  The walk along Piccaninny Creek takes you deeper into these domes and further away from the crowds.  The further you walk, the less people you see.

First of all I did the turn off for Piccaninny Gorge which is close to the start of the hike. I knew from experience that if I didn’t do it on the way out, chances were on the way back I would feel too tired and miss it. Always do the diversions on the way out. A couple of German tourists who were with a group rather than self-driving were going to the Window first and then changed their minds and decided to do the Piccaninny lookout first instead as they were on a time limit. I passed the bloke who had been walking into the mini palms gorge as I had been walking out the day before. His name was Joe and he said he was doing the hike to Whip Snake Gorge today.

It was a fabulous view from the Piccaninny lookout over the beehive domes, but I only stayed there for a few minutes and then moved on. It’s a good place to be at sunset, but then you have to walk back in the dark, so I contented myself with the view in the morning.

I headed back to Piccaninny Creek. You can walk a huge distance along Piccaninny Creek on an overnight hike, but you need a permit to go any further than the Whip Snake Gorge turn off. I wasn’t interested in doing this hike, I was contented with a half day hike where I could see the famous domes without the crowds, but didn’t have to camp out overnight.  I had also seen the extent of the domes from the air, so this would be enough for me.

At the start of the Creek you’re mostly walking along flat rocks and some sand. On some of the rocks you have to be careful as in some places they are separated and there’s a huge gap between them with a long drop down to the creek bed. In most cases the rocks are locked together so you don’t have to worry too much. As you get further along the Creek, the flat rocks are much less frequent and you’re crunching along a creek bed full of gravel, or rather very large stones which are difficult to walk on. It’s very hard going on the legs and you have to watch where you’re walking all the time because it’s so uneven. So I didn’t have any compulsion to do the full hike along Piccaninny Creek.

I did really enjoy hopping over the huge gaps in the rock, which had obviously been caused by water erosion.  The creek floods in the wet season and flash floods are common, so it’s not surprising the rock had eroded and you get huge holes in the creek bed.  I found it fascinating, the scenery at ground level was as amazing for me as the rock and domes above.  This was another reason I loved this hike so much, even if it did make for a more challenging walk. 

The next turn off you can do along Piccaninny Creek is the Window, which was exactly what the name suggested, a large hole in one of the rocks that looked like a window. You really shouldn’t miss this short detour, I loved it there.  Joe was at the Window when I arrived and he asked if I’d like a photo and persuaded me to climb into the Window, he said it wasn’t that difficult. I was pleased I took his advice because he got a couple of fabulous photos of me in the Window.

Joe was going to walk to Whip Snake Gorge after that and I decided that I would too. It was hot, but what was I going to do for the rest of the day? This is what I’d come to the Bungles for.

Most people don’t hike to Whip Snake Gorge. It’s just too far. You need a permit to hike Piccaninny Creek and it is an overnight hike, so most people just do the first lookout, a few more adventurous ones walk to the Window and then turn round, so there are relatively few tourists that hike the full 5km to reach Whip Snake Gorge. In one way it’s a shame, it’s a lovely hike and a beautiful peaceful place. In another way it’s wonderful, because it means it’s usually empty and you have it all to yourself.

I don’t think that will change. Unlike the top of Gunlom Falls in Kakadu where they are making the path easier, there’s no way of doing anything to Whip Snake Gorge. You can’t make it any shorter than it already is, you have to follow the dry creek to the turn off, so you can’t do anything with the hiking trail, so it is likely to remain a hike that few tourists who visit the Bungles will complete. However, after I’d made all the effort to drive to the Bungles and the fact was, I would probably never return, it seemed sensible to do all the hikes I possibly could.

The path to the gorge was fine, a bit up and down and part of it walking along another dry creek. The characteristic domes were there without the crowds of the domes hike and hike to Cathedral Gorge.  Once we got to the end of the gorge, it was quiet, peaceful and empty. 

The gorge walls tower above you and so this is one place where you do get some shade and it’s a bit cooler.  The hike along Piccaninny Creek has no shade and even in August when I was here, in the middle of the Australian winter, during the day it was very hot. 

I ended up walking with Joe for a good bit of the hike and then we took a few photos and sat in the gorge for a while enjoying the peace and quiet. He set off before me, I took a few extra minutes to rest, enjoying the gorge and the beehive domes as I headed back to Piccaninny Creek, but we ended up catching each other up again and walking all the way back to the car park together. It was a very enjoyable day.

Joe and I chatted about the hikes in the park. We’d both done them all, but Joe said he didn’t think many people were serious hikers like us. I didn’t actually think I was that much of a serious hiker, I only did day hikes, not long distance overnight hikes, but since most people seemed to walk the bare minimum, in comparison I suppose I am a serious hiker. I liked doing some of the hikes, and I was certainly keen to do less popular ones so that I didn’t meet a lot of people. In the Bungles there weren’t generally huge groups because the road into the park couldn’t accommodate big coaches, but even a group of 20 was too many for me. But you didn’t have to walk very far before you had the whole place to yourself, because even the tour groups didn’t generally walk that far.

I was so pleased I decided to do the hike. In the National Park visitor centre, the lady there had told me that the Mini Palms Gorge often turned out to be people’s favourite walk in the National Park. Not mine. Mine was definitely Whip Snake Gorge.  It wasn’t so much Whip Snake Gorge itself that I loved so much.  It was the whole hike along Piccaninny Creek, to the lookout and then the Window and along the creek bed with the huge holes in the rock that you had to hop over.  There was no defined trail along the creek, you just find your own route and have to make sure you don’t get trapped where the gap is too big to jump across.  It all added to the excitement.   

My recommendation is if you make the effort to go to Purnululu National Park, because it is an effort to get there, and especially if you’re not doing the overnight hike along Piccaninny Creek, definitely make sure you set aside a half day to do the 10km return hike into Whip Snake Gorge.  You get to experience walking along the creek, the fabulous detours to the lookout and the Window and the peaceful gorge itself.  It’s very rewarding and hopefully you’ll love it just as much as I did.

I travelled to Purnululu National Park in August 2019.

The Whip Snake Gorge hike is in the southern part of Purnululu National Park.  If you hike all the way into the gorge along Piccaninny Creek, the distance is 10km return from the car park and will take about half a day.

It takes approximately 5 hours to drive from Kununurra to the Purnululu National Park entrance.  Approximately 3 hours is on the main tarmac road from Kununurra, the last 2 hours or so is on the 4WD road to the park entrance.  You must have a high clearance 4WD vehicle to drive on this road.

Entrance fee to Purnululu National Park for vehicles payable at the Visitor Centre is currently $13AUD.

I stayed in the Bungle Bungle Wilderness Lodge run by APT.  I stayed in a superior tented cabin with ensuite facilities.  A 3 night package of bed, breakfast and evening meal was $342AUD per night (approximately £185 per night).  This was a discounted rate available for a stay of 3 nights or more.  I booked directly with APT.

An excellent practical guide for the Kimberley Region is available from Kimberley Australia written by Birgit Bradtke. There is a free mini guide, but I also purchased the more in depth online guide that gives you all the information you need to self-drive to Purnululu National Park.

I rented my 4WD car from Thrifty at Kununurra Airport.  A 4 day rental cost $760AUD (approximately £420).

I flew to Kununurra from Darwin with Air North.  The flight takes one hour.  I paid £100 for my outbound flight and £145 for my return flight.  I booked my flights with Budget Air. 

Read about the rest of my time in Purnululu National Park

Purnululu National Park

Read my other posts about my time in Kakadu National Park in Australia

Kakadu and Arnhemland

Infinity at Gunlom Falls

Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong

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

Kakadu and Arnhemland

Infinity at Gunlom Falls

Read about my time in Purnululu National Park

Purnululu National Park

Whip Snake Gorge

What is it about the Aussies where they feel the need to shorten names and then add an “O” to the end of them?

On my second day in Kakadu National Park I went on an excellent tour to Gunlom Falls.

My guide was called Damian. Or “Damo”. Everyone called him Damo. He called me Hayles instead of Hayley, which people sometimes do and I don’t mind at all. It seems like it’s an Aussie obsession to try and shorten a perfectly good name.

Anyway my day trip to the Gunlom Falls with Spirit of Kakadu was wonderful. I had a hire car, but there are so many car accidents in the Northern Territory involving tourists in hire cars that they have a lot of restrictions. One of them is that unless you have hired a 4WD, which is horrendously expensive in the Northern Territory, you can’t drive on any unsealed roads at all. Even if you hire a 4WD some roads are still off limits they’re so horrendous, including the one to Jim Jim Falls which even Kakadu Tours and Travel don’t offer because the roads are too horrendous for the guides to drive. Surely if the roads are so bad that even the local tour companies won’t go down them, they should do something to improve them.

I wasn’t going to Jim Jim, I was going to Gunlom, another place featured in Crocodile Dundee, at the very end of the Australian part of the film where they go swimming. The film is full of inaccuracies and downright lies, do not come to Kakadu relying on anything in that film. So for instance, Crocodile Dundee says that the lake at Gunlom Falls is safe to swim in because the crocs won’t go near mineral water. It’s total rubbish! In fact, the bottom pool at Gunlom is teeming with crocodiles. More about that later. 

Gunlom Falls was supposed to be amazing which was the reason I had opted to do a tour rather than miss it completely or spend hundreds of pounds hiring a 4WD to drive there myself. And I was not disappointed. If I’d been impressed with the tour yesterday, Gunlom Falls far surpassed it.

We made a brief stop at the termite mounds which were basically the same as I’d seen in Lichfield. Damo told me he hated guides who stuck keys and suchlike into the termite mounds to illustrate how termites repaired their mounds. If enough guides do that the termites can’t repair their mounds quickly enough, the ants get in and eat the termites. The other guide Tim then proceeded to do exactly that! Damo said they were ego tour guides who were the worst kind.

The road to Gunlom was horrible! Damo said I’d be pleased I hadn’t driven it myself and he was right. It was a rutted, corrugated, 37km nightmare. It was definitely as bad as some of the worst roads I’d driven on in South Australia. It was difficult to tell when I wasn’t driving if all 37km was completely ghastly, when he was flying over it at least 3 times as fast as I’d driven the really bad roads in South Australia, but 37km at 20kph would not have been fun.

Despite there being a total ban on hire cars going on gravel roads in the Northern Territory, there were plenty of tourists prepared to flout this rule and we passed a lot that were illegally driving down the road to Gunlom. The vehicles are fitted with trackers these days so the tourists would be caught out and if anything went wrong on the road they would be in big trouble. Damo said before the trackers were fitted, the car hire companies would give guides $50 for reporting any hire cars on the gravel roads. It must have been quite a good source of income! I certainly wasn’t prepared to take the risk of the return journey down this road in my hire car. It was quite nice to have a day off from driving too, particularly the sort of driving I would have had to do on this road! And the tour was immensely enjoyable.

So I mentioned that there are crocodiles in the lower pool at Gunlom Falls. Most of them are freshwater crocodiles which are small and generally harmless to humans. Freshwater crocodiles can only eat things they can swallow whole which means that eating a human is a physical impossibility as freshwater crocodiles are pretty small.

So you can happily swim amongst the crocodiles there as freshwater crocodiles will leave you alone unless you start throwing stones at them to make them move for photos which apparently people from Darwin tend to do!  The people of Darwin seem to have quite a bad reputation. They come into Kakadu from the city, throw stones at crocodiles and generally behave like idiots. They’re portrayed as a right load of hooligans.

The Darwin Times is apparently the Sunday Sport of Aussie newspapers. Damo said in any given week, 4 front page headlines would be about crocodiles, 2 would be about snakes and one about aliens!

While it’s safe to swim amongst the freshwater crocodiles in the lower pool at Gunlom, it has been known for the estuarine crocodiles, the infamous, man eating “salties”, to get into the pool at Gunlom Falls. Rangers check the water for them, but it’s not 100% guaranteed a man eating crocodile hasn’t got into the water.

It is 100% guaranteed that an estuarine crocodile has not got into one of the pools at the top of the falls because it would be impossible for a crocodile to get up there. It’s difficult enough for humans to get up there, so a crocodile would have no chance. It’s a long way up.

Damo was less accurate about was the path to the top of Gunlom Falls. He said the first two thirds was easy and the last third you’d be clambering over boulders as high as the bonnet of the car and if you had bad knees it was a bad idea. I really wanted to go to the top of the falls and swim in the infinity pool, but he made me nervous. I’d just about committed to staying at the bottom of the waterfall and braving the crocodiles, when me and Val, who was also on the tour, met an Aussie who said we really couldn’t miss the top of the waterfall and she’d done the hike in jandals (an Aussie word for flip flops). She said it was the best place in the park and we had to go up there. That convinced me and Val.

A new path is actually being constructed to the top of the falls, but it isn’t finished yet. It’s almost a shame that they’re constructing the easy path because it will make the top of the waterfall much more crowded for anyone who braves the horrible drive to Gunlom. And as it was, the path wasn’t that bad. I’ve done much harder hikes than that when I’ve been on my own. And for once I wasn’t the slowest person on the hike either. Val was much slower than me. She was older, but I’ve had people 20 years older than me bounding past me on some trails. Initially I was behind Val, but she was so slow I was scared I was going to get kicked in the face. I was much happier when I got in front of her and mostly managed to avoid ever being behind her on the hike again, both on the way up and on the way down.

Yes, there was a bit of clambering. But nothing insurmountable if you took your time and held on and there were plenty of rocks and trees to hold on to. I had to get down low to get down in some spots, my hands and clothes were filthy, but they’d both wash.

And I was so pleased I went up there. It was a definite highlight for me. The only problem was we didn’t have long enough. I could have stayed up there half the day. I got my bikini on, even if I did have a bit of a tummy on me at the moment. It was all I had with me and I was not missing out on a swim in the infinity pool.

The pool generally wasn’t too deep, it had quite a few rocks in it so I was half swimming and half walking to feel for the rocks so I didn’t bash my legs and then I got to the ledge of the infinity pool.

There was actually one below me, but this was close enough and no one was swimming in the one below, although some people had walked out there. There was no way I could walk on those rocks. I would have slipped and fallen over the edge to certain death. I was happy. This was a good place to be.

In fact when the Austrian lad, who was in the other vehicle on the tour, took a photo of me with my camera, when you look at it, I look like I’m right on the edge of the waterfall, about to go over myself. It’s a great shot.

All too soon it was over and I had to get dried and dressed and tackle the path back down. My knee was pulling a bit, but this was not a really difficult hike and I was so pleased I’d listened to the Aussie woman in flip flops. She was right. This was the best place in the park. I was so pleased I had not missed out on going to the top of Gunlom Falls. They really should not be missed. They were the highlight of my trip to Kakadu and certainly one of the highlights of this trip to Oz.

Val didn’t agree with the Aussie lass in flip flops and it seemed to me that she wished she hadn’t gone up there especially as she had no swimming gear and wasn’t going to swim. She would have been better off staying down at the bottom and having a paddle in the shallow part of the lower pool.

I met a man on my way down from the falls who was obviously English, but lived in Texas. I had my Yorkshire teeshirt on and he asked what part of Yorkshire I was from.

We had lunch and then I ran off down the path to the pool at the bottom of the falls to take some photos with the top of the falls in them so that I could show where I’d been swimming. I asked an Aussie couple to take a photo of me. They said I looked like a proper Aussie bushwoman covered in dirt and asked if I was a Yorkshire lass. I said I certainly was. And I think I’m a very intrepid one at that. If it hadn’t been for the car restriction, I would have been coming to the Gunlom Falls by myself. No doubt about that.

And then it was time to head off. We went to the Moline Rockhole waterfall down a road that wasn’t signposted, but unfortunately a tour bus followed us so after about 10 minutes and we were inundated with people. The water at this pool was deeper than at the Gunlom Infinity pools and also I’d just about dried off, so I contented myself with dangling my legs in the water and didn’t bother swimming. A Brazilian girl from Rio in a very small Brazilian bikini was at the pool very happily swimming, but her French boyfriend contented himself with dangling his legs in the water too.

The arrival of the tour bus party completely ruined the tranquility, so it was time for us to move on. We did make a brief stop at a viewpoint at the side of the road for photos. Me and Val had a photo with Damo and I had a photo with Val and Anna who was also on the tour with us.

Then it was just heading back to the Lodge to pick up some cheese and wine and relax by the billabong just beyond the staff quarters at Cooinda Lodge. The billabong was a beautiful spot and there was plenty of wildlife to watch as we sipped our wine and ate our cheese and crackers.  There were cockatoos, eagles, egrets, wild buffalo, wild pig and saltwater crocodile. The crocodile was swimming in the water and then got onto the bank, although Damo claimed we were far enough away not to be in any danger.  She then got back into the billabong.

It’s so hot and the water looks so inviting, it’s understandable why people want to swim there, but impossible to understand why they would take a risk when estuarine crocodiles are everywhere and they are fast enough, big enough, strong enough and hungry enough to grab you from the edge of the water, kill you and eat you.

Another statement made in Crocodile Dundee was when he said crocs don’t like fresh meat. The crocodile hunters on the Adelaide River said the crocodiles love fresh meat, they like to keep some meat to go rotten which will subsequently attract more hungry animals which they can then kill and eat.  But I also heard conflicting information from one of the Kakadu guides that they don’t like fresh meat.  I think, if they’re hungry enough, they will eat you, fresh or otherwise.  So why take the chance?

That was the end of my hugely enjoyable day. The people on the other tour who did Gunlom in conjunction with another waterfall were a lovely young Austrian couple and an Aussie bloke who was very patient with me on the Gunlom waterfall walk, although to be fair, everyone was taking it steady, so he was probably just as slow as I was.

Damo told us a lot of stuff and quite a lot about Aboriginals because he knew some of them quite well. Everything is shrouded in secrecy, which I find very strange since I look at it all as quite superstitious. I have my own superstitions, like most people, which I tell myself are ridiculous, but are also no secret to anyone. Damo wasn’t permitted to tell us much about the Aboriginals. He’d worked in Kakadu for a while now and got to know a lot of the local people, had gained their trust and had been told lots of things about the Aboriginal community. But it was a closed to community that most people don’t get access to and most things that had been shared with him, he wasn’t allowed to disclose.

Today’s weather had been like the build up, the driver on the way back was saying. Hot with high humidity but no chance of rain. That’s what the build up is like, hot, high humidity, big clouds rolling in, thunder and lightning, but no rain. It must be spectacular, but getting no relief from rain for 2 months or more must be difficult. Those not acclimatised can go a bit crackers, it’s known as “going troppo”.  Damo was telling us this French lady in her 50s who was working in Kakadu got drunk and trashed a house because the build up got to her and she went “troppo”. She couldn’t remember what she’d done and denied the whole thing. It could be very extreme. I’d heard about it. It hadn’t seemed that bad to me today other than I was sweating buckets on my climb up to the top of Gunlom Falls, but I would have expected that with the heat and a steep climb up to the top of a waterfall anyway.  But to have that kind of weather for 2 months, I could understand how someone not used to it could go a bit loopy.

I’d had an amazing day.  If I had to pick one day out of my trip to Australia that was the best, this would be the one.

I travelled to the Top End of the Northern Territory in early August 2019.

My day tour to Gunlom Falls was the Footprints of Kakadu tour and cost $224AUD. This included pick up from my accommodation in Jabiru, transportation through the National Park and stops at Gunlom Falls and Ikoymarrwa Rock Pool, lunch, cheese and wine at a private billabong, snacks and Damo! I booked this through Kakadu Tours and Travel who charged at 1.5% fee for using a credit card when I booked in March 2019.

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

Kakadu and Arnhemland

Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong

Read about my time in Purnululu National Park

Purnululu National Park

Whip Snake Gorge

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

Infinity at Gunlom Falls

Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong

Read about my time in Purnululu National Park

Purnululu National Park

Whip Snake Gorge