West Arnhem

After leaving our pilots behind, we jumped on the Yellow Water Cruise with Kathrin. She was fantastic at her job, showing us the saltwater crocodiles, birds and plants at the Yellow Water Billabong, the Southern and Western Alligator River. We've learned that the explorer who found the salties in the rivers thought that they were alligators which led to naming the river wrongly. I guess renaming is difficult in Australia. They actually have lots of weird naming stories, one of them being the city of Humpty Duo, which got it's name after a journalist writing about the cattle farm Humpty Didoo (idk if that's correctly spelled) and spelled it Humpty Duo... Great stories there.
Anyway, we saw lots of salties, mostly laying around in the shadows to cool themselves off, or in the sun to heat themselves up. Having their mouth open helps them cooling off as the wind is blowing through it then. I never really understood the interest in crocodiles before seeing them so close by. They look ancient and their vibe is very ancient as well. It's actually very difficult to age them properly, especially the females. Their bones are like trees and have rings in them, from which you can tell if a croc had lots to eat or not. But after a while, they stop growing so it is nearly impossible to put a finger on a certain age. However, scientists think they could get about 100 years old. It's also very uncommon to see baby crocs as they are very endangered. Their own mother would eat them if she would find them... That's awful, don't you think? Well, after we spotted enough of the salties, Kathrin went on and told us about native bamboo and the water lillies that would die off soon, going further into the dry season. It's actually enormous, how much the landscape changes there. At the end of dry season, Kathrin told us that the water will sink about 2m, and at the end of wet season the water would have risen up to 4m higher than it was right now. It's insane. When going back to the buses, another Guide named Jessica told us that the water would rise so high, that all the streets and fences and platforms we currently stood on and walked over, would be flooded and not seen. The fence was completely rusted because of that. And the biggest problem coming with the water are the salties that can get super dangerous for humans. Who doesn't have to be too afraid of them though, are the birds. As long as they are not stupid enough to fly and land directly next to them, crocs don't like eating birds as they can't digest the feathers and would need to spit them out. One of the bird species there is the Whistling Bird. They look like very serene ducks but they would actually be very bad ducks because they hate water. Another species is the Jaribu that can't be called like that anymore because the South American Jaribu bird has the "right of its name". I did forget the new name for the Australian Jaribu though...
What I didn't forget about was the two aboriginal words that Kathrin told us at the end of the cruise. The first one is Gamak which means something like Thank you. And the other one is Bor Bor, which means Until we see each other again (or less dramatic: See you later, alligator).
I actually think it's really cool how she and also our bus driver this morning, have acknowledged the Aboriginal people and the custodians of the land. It really makes you understand the importance of respect between the aboriginal and non-aboriginal people.
After riding the boat up and down the falsely named rivers, I was through about 4L of water. I was sweating like hell, I was thirsty af and couldn't stop drinking and spilling water all over me to cool me down. I'm really not much of a heat person and that Top End warmth really got on my nerves.
Luckily, after the very hot cruise, we could cool off at lunch at the Cooinda Lodge. I sat down with my new four friends, eating nice cool food and discuss German politics and phrases. After a while, Gerry pointed out one of the waitresses and said "I think she's German." Not long after that, his friend Jim just asked the girl if she actually was German and Gerry was right. We started talking in German about her time in Australia so far and she told me that she's been here for about four years now. I was quite impressed, I didn't know one could stay in Australia that long of a time. Maybe Covid did some good for her in that regard. She didn't miss Germany and just loved the Australian lifestyle... Well, I guess I see some points but I can't judge yet. Maybe in three weeks I would have an opinion on that.
After lunch, we gathered again to drive to our last stop: Nourlangie or Burrunkuy.Read more