The next morning, we had a tour of Kakadu National Park for
three days, and weren’t allowed to bring our large packs, so we have to prep
stuff. I got a “that’s all your
bringing? Really??” from Jared, so I
think I did pretty well. Once we had our
main packs locked up in the luggage storage at the hostel, and all our stuff
ready for the tour, we took some showers and purtied up. Our blast-from-the-past travel friend, Jordan
Allen, whom we originally met in Puerto Escondido, then again in Guatemala, Tasmania
(only Jared) and Sydney (only me), was spending his last night in Darwin!! He met us at our hostel, and showed us around
town a bit. We walked to the main
esplanade, with a bay nicely netted off due to the large amount of salt-water
crocodiles and sharks…my kind of bay! He
took us around town a bit, and we shared experiences and further plans, a lot
of which consisted of, “well, I could do this….or this…or this…who knows we’ll
see. However long my money lasts”. You know, the classic traveler’s
“plans”. For old time’s sake, we went to
a Mexican restaurant that was actually surprisingly good; the boys got
enchiladas and I got fish tacos. After
dinner, Jordan walked us back home, as we had to wake up pretty early. We hugged it out and said our
see-you-laters. We’ll see him again, I
have no doubt; he’s a great person.
The next morning, we woke up nice and early to eat (free
breakfast!) and be ready for our tour van to pick us up around 6:30am. As usual, we drove around to a few other
locations to pick up the other travelers, and with 11 of us, we set out into
the outback of Australia! Our first stop
that day was in Wulna Country where we met a young aboriginal girl who was part
of the Limilngan-Wulna people. The first thing she did was bless each
person, much like a baptism in her culture, and ward off negative spirits. This was done by sipping on water from the
local billabong and spitting on the face of the person you want to bless. So, yea that happened, and now we are forever
protected from evil spirits! She then
told us about some other traditions from her culture regarding education,
coming of age ceremonies and local hierarchy.
I learned that if I fancy an aboriginal man who is married, all I have
to do is bring a large stick into the village and challenge his most senior
wife. We then duke it out with our
sticks, and if I’m still standing at the end, I am allowed to become a
wife! So that’s a safety for me, which
is nice!! I liked learning about the
local aboriginal culture a lot, not just because it gives me a marital safety
net. After, we went to a different
location and took a cruise through Mary River wetlands system, housing the
largest concentration of salt water crocs in Australia. We were strongly discouraged from sticking
any part of our bodies over the side of the boat. The guide was a very nice woman, who worked
with a researched crocodiles. She
informed us the crocodiles were basically just very curious animals, like dogs,
who were misunderstood and overly vilified…yea right lady, we’re not buying
it. “Salties”, as the ever-abbreviating
culture of Australia has coined them (see also, Maccas, brekkie, sunnies,
swimmers etc), are crazy man eating monsters…I’m never changing my mind on
that. She did inform us that the salties
are probably the world’s most effective and efficient predators. Anyway, the cruise ended up being nice, and
we still have all of our extremities. We
got to see both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles along with local vegetation
and exotic birds. After our cruise, we
grabbed some lunch of hotdogs, which did not impress Jared, until there were
about 15 hotdogs left over that he got to dominate. The end of the day brought us north to Ubirr
to look at some ancient, and modern rock art from the local aboriginal tribes. We walked around the protected area to the
top of a lookout before calling it a day and heading into a campsite just
before the sun went down. There was a
pool, so while half the group organized dinner, the other half hung around by
the pool. That night we ate two batches
of kangaroo meat. The first was marinated
in barbeque sauce and onions, which was really quite tasty; the second batch
was plain and so undercooked it was still hopping away. Even Jared couldn’t eat it, which is saying a
lot. The tour guide recooked it a bit,
but I gotta say kangaroo is really gamey; I took one bite and gave the
remainder to Jared. We went to bed early
that night as we had an early morning rise the next day.
At 5:30am we all started packing up and getting ready for
the day. We had a pretty indulgent
breakfast, and Jared and I finally figured out how to eat Vegemite. Proceed with caution, but it’s actually quite
nice. We loaded up the bus and headed
into Kakadu National Park to view some of the waterfalls. The first was Twin Falls. The road leading to the falls was dirt,
gravel, sand and generally crap, including a half meter deep river to drive
through. Needless to say, we were happy
we did not attempt to DIY Kakadu. We had
a quick jaunt over to a ferry which took us upstream before hopping out and walking
a bit more to the falls. Unfortunately,
because this was the end of the dry season, the falls were all but dried
up. It was still a lovely place to have
lunch, right beside the water on the rocks below the falls. The safety of swimming anywhere in Kakadu
National Park, and the northern region in general, is entirely dictated by the
presence of crocodiles. The process by
which crocodiles are detected in different water sources is by leaving a
Styrofoam ball in the water; the ball is then checked at a later date to see if
there are teeth marks. The teeth marks
are inspected to verify whether it is from a salt water or fresh water croc: if
it’s a saltie, the water is deemed unsafe to swim, and that’s that. So, seriously, that’s the entire process for
verifying whether there are salt water crocodiles; needless to say, it’s not
entirely foolproof, so at every water source there is a disclaimer making you
aware that you swim at your own risk.
Jeeeezzzzz. Anyway, Twin Falls
had been deemed unsafe to swim, so after lunch, we headed back to the ferry and
bus and over to the next waterfall, Jim Jim.
We got to do a bit of a mini-hike to Jim Jim, so Jared and I sped ahead
trying to find fun rocks to climb to get great views on the way to the
falls. There had been a small amount of
water coming down Twin Falls, but unfortunately, Jim Jim was entirely dried up. Jim Jim is a thin but very tall waterfall
that empties into a lake below, surrounded by huge boulders. We set our things on the boulders and were
able to swim through the lake all the way to the side where the falls would
normally dump into, which was kind of neat, and obviously wouldn’t have been
possible if the water levels were higher.
We spent a few hours swimming around in the beautiful lake surrounded by
huge sharps cliffs. After a few hours of
lounging and swimming, we packed up our things and headed back to the bus,
through the rugged roads and to our new campsite. This campsite had showers, so we were all
able to wash off two days of hiking and swimming. Dinner was unremarkable that night, but oh
God, the evening’s entertainment. The
tour guide had brought a guitar, which he had yet to pull out, but there had
been talk of a campfire sing along. I wish
you could see my face as I write this; it’s not a pleasant face. Low and behold, that night, as the sun set
and dinner finished up, he pulled out that damned guitar. At that exact moment, I attempted to say my
goodbyes to the group, but the guide actually insisted that I stay for one song
that I might know, so he proceeded to play some country song coaxing me to sing
along with him throughout. Yea that
wasn’t happening. Finally at the end of
the song, I clapped, waved my hand and made a bee-line for our tent. Nicole Jafar, if you’re reading this, I
really really really wish you had been there at the exact moment when the guide
and group all started singing “You Are My Sunshine”. Oh, Jesus, no I’m not kidding. I couldn’t keep it together. Anyway, thankfully, the evenings serenade
died down not long after that, and I was able to get some damned peace and
quiet! ;) That night we slept in tents without the rain
covers, allowing a great view of the stars, which was nice to wake up to
throughout the night.
The next morning, we woke with the birds, which means early.
We had our breakfast, packed up, started
the bus, and immediately disembarked to fix a flat tire, which shockingly only
took about 30 minutes. I couldn’t change
a flat on a normal car in 30 minutes, let along an all-terrain tire on a bus
that looks like a hand-me-down from the military. Anyway, our destination that day was called
Maguk, which contained a waterfall and swimming holes. We had about a 30-40 minute uphill climb
before coming to the top of the waterfall, where we could jump from 6 meter
cliffs into the swimming holes and through underwater tunnels. We had a bunch of fun cheering each other
onto higher and higher jumps. I think
Jared and I were the only two who made the tallest jump. We had lunch and spent
a few hours enjoy the swimming and sun before leaving a bit after 3pm. The rest of the day we spent driving back,
only stopping to see the gargantuan termite castles that can grow to several
meters high, and a couple pit stops before returning to Darwin a bit before
sundown.
The tour guide had made reservations for the whole group to
get together for dinner and drinks that night.
Jared opted out, so I went and met everyone. We had a nice dinner and
drinks before making our way to one of the local nightclubs and getting a
pretty serious dance sesh in before calling it a night! It was a good thing I went that night,
because I was able to set up a taxi share with a couple from the tour for the
next morning. I got back to hostel a bit
late, prophylactically chugged some water, and made it to bed a touch after
2am, to be up by about 6am (hangover-free by the way) and head to Broome and
Cable Beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment