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Darwin & the Top End 2016Darwin & the Top End 2016
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A 7-day adventure by Joel Read more
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  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
    1
    Day 1

    The Journey Begins

    June 9, 2016 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    The day started in Thirroul, up early at 7am to see them off to work. Back to bed for an hour's doze before a quick breakfast and a final review of packing. Off to Prestons by 9:45, where we had tea and cake with Mum. Then we left to pick Rae up from his school concert at Birrong, before having lunch at a cafe in Bankstown Square. Thankfully we didn't get shot by bikies as seems to happen there!

    Finally after the running around we made it to the airport by around 2pm, in plenty of time for our flight. Breeze through security, 10 minutes wait at the gate and suddenly we're on the plane and taxiing. Took off over the city so we were treated to one last view of Sydney in the sunshine as the rest of our lives beckoned.

    The flight to Brisbane was pretty uneventful, though Shandos was seated next to a rough-looking man with a lot of gold jewelry (including a chunky gold ring with a diamond-studded dollar sign!), who used Facebook most of the way and then took a phone call while the plane was on final approach. We decided he was probably a bikie.

    Spent several hours hanging around Brisbane airport waiting for our flight - had a couple of drinks, had a salubrious dinner in the food court of rice paper rolls and Subway and after 4 long hours our flight was finally ready to go.

    Very full again, and this time we had a generously proportioned lady sitting next to us. But not long after takeoff it was lights out so Shandos dozed and I played Civ V for the next four hours until we arrived in Darwin.

    Hot and humid outside the terminal building even at 12:30am, we found the shuttle bus with very little difficulty. Although I don't know why they bother, we were probably on the bus for less than a minute before getting out at the airport hotel! Checked in and finally collapsed into bed around 1am, after a very long start to the trip!    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 2

    The Sights of Darwin

    June 10, 2016 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    Despite not getting to bed until 1am, neither of us could sleep in - the rest of our lives ahead of us and all that. So we were up and out by 8am, stopping by the hotel buffet for breakfast and perusing the local news (the front page story was a kangaroo named Fuck It trying to have sex with a pig in the next paddock).

    Although we couldn't pick up the van until 10am, we decided to try our luck anyway and turn up at 9. Not the greatest decision - someone had called in sick and service was very slow, then the manager told us the air conditioner on our van wasn't working and she couldn't send it out like that, so it was going to be another couple of hours. But she offered us a couple of taxi vouchers so we could travel around and see some things, which we gratefully accepted.

    So it was off to the Darwin Aviation Heritage Museum in a hangar near the airport. Lots of old planes including a B-52 Stratofortress bomber, so large it took up the entire hangar! An F-111 swing-wing fighter-bomber which was one of my favourite planes as a teenager, a Dassault Mirage fighter jet, a DC3 passenger plane, as well as the wrecks of a couple of Japanese aircraft from the war and a B-24 Liberator bomber. Very interesting displays as well about the bombing of Darwin during WW2 - most Australians don't realise the city was raided 60+ times by the Japanese and was basically levelled.

    After a few solid hours here we headed back to Britz Hire, and waited patiently for half an hour while the manager spoke on the phone to the world's most inquisitive customer. Yes, it comes with linen. No, I haven't checked the forecast so I can't tell you whether you'll need an extra blanket. Yes, it comes with a shovel. No, it doesn't include salt and pepper or condiments. On it went, but eventually she was ready and our car was ready too!

    It's easily the largest vehicle I've ever driven, an oversized Volkswagen van with a toilet & shower, double bed and fully-featured kitchen. Slightly terrifying to drive and park since it's both wide and long, but I slowly got used to it as the day progressed.

    First stop for the new wheels was the Darwin Botanic Gardens where we had a light lunch at the cafe and watched the fountain display. Then a short jaunt over to the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, where we spent a couple of hours looking at the various exhibits. Some amazing indigenous art including a couple of Namatjira's paintings. And of course Sweetheart, a 10-metre saltwater croc that had terrorised locals back in the 80s and 90s. Sweetheart was inadvertently killed when authorities were trying to move him away from populated areas, so the decision was taken to stuff him and put him in the Museum. Even stuffed, he's a terrifying sight. Estimated to be 50-80 years old when he died!

    There's also a very moving exhibit about Cyclone Tracy which destroyed Darwin on Christmas Day in 1974. Lots of old photographs and news footage, and the highlight of a completely dark room where a real recording of Cyclone Tracy plays on a loop. Such unimaginable power in that storm - they don't even know how powerful it was because the airport's wind gauge registered a gust of 265km/h and then broke!

    A quick coffee and a mango slice in the cafeteria overlooking the water, before driving out to Nightcliff to stock up on provisions at Woolies. We want to make an early getaway tomorrow rather than stuffing around with visiting supermarkets and so on. So we're all set for the week!

    Next stop was East Point reserve, a bushland peninsula sticking out into the sea with awesome views across the entrance to Port Darwin. It's a popular sunset spot with the locals, who were all out fishing, having a drink and watching the sun set (as were we!). Kept our eyes peeled for wallabies which are apparently quite common in the area, but alas we were disappointed.

    Final stop for the busy day was Darwin CBD itself, for dinner at a bar called Lost Arc. Very lively, with a lovely woman singing and plenty of people out on the town for a Friday night. Though everyone was very miffed when both meat tray raffles were won by the same bloke! Shandos had a crocodile burger which I shared in - very delicious! Left early as it's been a busy day, and with an early start beckoning tomorrow it wouldn't have been the best idea!    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 3

    Into Kakadu

    June 11, 2016 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Another hotel breakfast and then hit the road heading east out of Darwin by 9am. First stop was the Leaping Croc Cruise on the Adelaide River, which we drove all the way to and discovered it was booked out! Thankfully there are two other jumping crocodile businesses in the area, so we picked one and spent an engaging 20 minutes in the Window on the Wetlands visitor centre while we waited.

    The croc cruise was fantastic, the crocodiles are enormous predators (up to 6m long in some cases!), and the wranglers on board bait them with hunks of meat in the water. Just as the croc goes to snatch the meat, they lift it away like Lucy in Peanuts, while the croc lifts almost its entire body out of the water with an enormous splash. On the way back to the dock they also threw some meat scraps to the local Kite bird population who swoop in and catch the meat in their talons.

    By now it was lunchtime so we backtracked slightly for a nice picnic ground at Fogg Dam. It's in the middle of a wetlands area and calling it a "dam" is a disservice - it's really more of a levee or embankment with a road on it. Shandos remembered a nice walk along the dam looking at the wetlands, but since the wet season hadn't fully receded yet the walk was still closed (mainly due to the threat of crocodiles).

    So we had a picnic lunch overlooking the fens and then headed east towards Kakadu. We headed most of the way across the park (still probably 80km wide at this point), to a place called Ubirr (You-beer) where there's some beautiful rock art. Some of it is thousands of years old, some of it is much newer than that, but apparently it's quite acceptable to paint over someone else's artwork! It still blows my mind sometimes that Aboriginal culture in this area is mostly unchanged from 50,000 years ago.

    We spent quite a while looking at the various artworks and learning about aspects of the culture. By now it was closing on sunset and thankfully Ubirr is renowned for them. After a rough but not-too-difficult climb we reached the top of a rocky outcrop with several hundred of our closest friends. The sunset over the wetlands was magnificent, and the sandstone escarpments of Arnhem Land glowing in the distance.

    But we needed to beat a hasty retreat since the area closes at sunset and night falls extremely quickly after sunset. Thankfully we were staying just nearby at Merl Campground. A little basic but given the size and features of our motorhome it didn't really matter! The only gripe was no powered sites meant that we couldn't run the air conditioning overnight!

    Sausages and salad for dinner, and crashed into bed by 9pm after a long day of driving. Thankfully not so much of that tomorrow.    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 4

    Ubirr to Cooinda

    June 12, 2016 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Not too much driving today thankfully, so we took our leave of Merl Campground and its persistent insects. First stop today was Burrunggui Rock (formerly Nourlangie Rock), where some of the best rock art is to be found. Here there are four or five galleries scattered over a wide area, so we wandered around and checked it out.

    Some of the more detailed paintings reminded me of the Valley of The Kings in Egypt - the iconography and the detailing in the finishes seemed quite similar. Eerily beautiful. One area was underneath an enormous boulder probably 30-40 metres square, hanging probably 10 metres above our heads, and protected on all sides by other large boulders. Elevated slightly from the wetlands and with a few canyon-type gaps to let the breeze through, it was just an enchanting place. The sign said local Aboriginal mobs have used the space for probably 20,000 years, and it's pretty easy to see why.

    There was also a good hike here up another rocky outcrop, so of course indulged and drank in the view. This spot is much closer to the Arnhem escarpment, so there were large frowning sandstone cliffs on several sides. There's a walk you can do right to the top of those, but supposedly it takes 6-8 hours and requires departure before at least 10am, which we'd missed by several hours.

    Nearby we also stopped in at the Cultural Centre to check out displays of culture, history and so on. Very informative as usual.

    From here we drove to the Cooinda Campground, a large indigenous-run campground/caravan park/small village, our destination for the night. We discovered on checking in that although we thought we'd only lined up a complimentary sunrise cruise on the nearby Yellow River, it was actually a sunset cruise one night and a sunrise cruise another morning! And that the sunset cruise was leaving in about 90 minutes.

    We had a quick dip in the pool to cool off and relax - although it's cooler here a bit further south from Ubirr/Jabiru area, it's still reaching low/mid-30s every day. After our swim we hopped on the Yellow River shuttle and boarded a boat without incident.

    Our guide/driver was a local man named Reuben who was very knowledgeable about the fish, the plants, the birds, the river and the ecosystem. Saw a bunch of crocodiles, lots of wading birds including a jabiru, some songbirds like the azure kingfish, and a glimpse of a wallaby. No sign of the local buffalo who are an introduced species - they were brought in to help pastoralists in the mid-1800s but of course their farms failed and the buffalo were left to their own devices.

    Another gorgeous sunset over the wetlands (this time from the boat), and then it was back to our trusty motorhome for another bbq dinner in the dark. Still getting used to this camping thing, but it's working out okay so far.    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 5

    Exploring Kakadu

    June 13, 2016 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Finally a day with no driving! As we'd hired a 2WD motorhome, there were a few places we really wanted to see but were inaccessible to us - at the end of long, dirt 4WD tracks. So we'd booked ourselves a day trip to see a couple of the sights.

    After joining our group of mostly retirees and a young German/Dutch couple, ably lead by Ranger Adam, we set off towards Maguk (formerly Barramundi Gorge), about 90 minutes away in the southern part of Kakadu. After turning off the paved highway it was pretty rough with lots of corrugations in the dirt road, so I'm definitely glad we didn't try and sneak the van down it! We had a brief bit of morning tea in the carpark before heading off down the last 1km walk to the falls.

    Mostly just wandering along through forest paths before a little bit of clambering over some boulders - in which none of the pensioners stacked it, but I managed to! Just lost a little bit of skin from my elbow and a scrape along the side of the GoPro, plus a bit of wounded pride. Maguk falls were definitely worth the fall though! The water isn't super high, only about 20m, but the pool itself was very large (several Olympic pools long and a couple wide), and very deep. The water was lovely and warm, with a couple of large rocks in the water providing platforms for standing.

    Although we couldn't be sure there were no crocodiles, Ranger Adam pointed out the white buoy at the water's edge. Apparently saltwater crocs absolutely can't resist biting the buoys, so you know that if you arrive somewhere and the buoy has been bitten, there's probably a croc in there. Swam over to the base of the falls and perched on a rock ledge to watch the water thundering over; such an impressive sight!

    After our swim we headed back to the truck and grabbed our lunch of wraps, chicken and salads. We seemed to hang around a bit longer than either of us wanted, but in a group of 16 mostly retirees it wasn't the quickest group to wrangle.

    Set off back north towards Jim Jim Falls, which again took a couple of hours. The road in to the campground was fine, but the last couple of kilometres via a single-lane unsealed road was absolute torture - driving at basically walking pace, and stopping every couple of minutes to pass other vehicles. But eventually we arrived in one piece.

    Jim Jim Falls is a much tougher walk - basically a kilometre of clambering over boulders to reach the plunge pool. Some of the pensioners opted out but others pressed on; Shandos and I left them to their own devices with Ranger Adam, as we didn't want to miss out on maximising our swimming time!

    It wasn't a tough walk but you had to be very careful, picking spots and striding over crevasses etc. Difficult going, but not hard if that makes any sense. Again it was well worth the effort - Jim Jim Falls are much taller than Maguk, probably closer to 40m, and fall straight down into a large round plunge pool. It's in the back of a gorge so doesn't get much sun during the day, and the water was quite a bit colder. But we still had a dip, and enjoyed cooling off after the walk.

    But all good things must come to an end; eventually we had to hop out, dry off and take the long walk back to the truck. Easier going on the way back, and we had a good conversation with the young Dutch/German couple who were about to drive their campervan to Brisbane over the next 2 weeks before heading back to Europe. Bus journey back was long and boring - we'd been around the north of Kakadu quite a bit by now and although the scenery is nice, the best bits are well off the road (or in the extreme edges like Ubirr). I dozed off a couple of times!

    We ate at the Cooinda Campground restaurant for dinner, where we both had local delicacies. Shandos had a plate of kangaroo fillet, marinated crocodile, fried barramundi and buffalo meatballs; while I had a pizza with crocodile sausage, buffalo mince and bush spices. It was nice enough but I wasn't a huge fan of the crocodile sausage - it would've been nicer as chunks I think!    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 6

    Kakadu to Litchfield

    June 14, 2016 in Australia ⋅ 🌧 22 °C

    Another day, another cruise. It's a tough life, let me tell you! Up before dawn to catch our sunrise cruise on Yellow Waters; same mob as the sunset cruise a couple of days earlier, but obviously with one major difference this time.

    We cruised around Yellow Waters Billabong this time with Ranger Tom (our previous guide Ranger Reuben was in another boat), checking out the sunrise, the birds, the plants and of course the crocodiles. We saw one croc sitting up on the bank, and as we approached he stretched his jaw super wide! Crazy - apparently their bite pressure is some ridiculous amount like 10,000psi, and even just the weight of their upper jaw is enough to sever a limb. Scary animals.

    Buffet breakfast back at Cooinda, then time to hit the road again! We drove south out of Kakadu, making towards Pine Creek. Here we turned right onto the Stuart Highway and back vaguely towards Darwin. Stop #1 was the Adelaide River War Cemetery, where most of the casualties from the WW2 bombings of Darwin and the Top End are buried (or at least commemorated). Darwin was bombed 62 times during the war and basically completely destroyed, a fact that's slowly being lost to the sands of time - if indeed people from the southern states are even aware of it. Most people know that the bombings occurred, but I think many people would be surprised at the extent of the damage.

    Back into our rolling home on wheels and we headed north-east into Litchfield National Park. The country here was much sparser than the dense forests of Kakadu, though a lot more burnt as well. I didn't realise that the back-burning they do up here is just in small areas - they might burn an acre or two here and there, but only burn that area every few years. If you burn off the entire area, all the animals and trees die, but if you give them somewhere to flee the fire they'll always return.

    Our main stop of the afternoon in Litchfield was Florence Falls, a triple fall that what it lacked in height, made up for in intensity! A huge torrent of water was gushing over the top and filling the large plunge pool, which we happily plunged into. And of course I noticed as soon as I jumped in that the GoPro battery was flat, and the spare battery was back in the car - 135 steps above us! So back up I went. But it was worth it.

    After a good long relaxing swim we jumped in the car again heading for our final spot, Wangi Falls. This place was Shandos's favourite from previous trips - the plunge pool is enormous and the falls themselves are very high. But to our disappointment the pool was closed, because - you guessed it - a crocodile had been seen in the water the previous day. I can only hope it was spotted before anyone started swimming because holy shit I can't imagine the bedlam that would result if there was a hundred people in the water and someone yelled "CROCODILE!!!".

    We'd planned to stay the night at the adjacent campground which turned out to be full, so we just parked in a parking bay towards the back and hoped no rangers came by - especially since we didn't have anything close to the correct change to pay for our spot (the cost was $13.60 and both of us only had $50 notes!). Thankfully no rangers came by, though at about 10pm we heard gunshots which according to a neighbour was the rangers shooting at the crocodile. No word on whether they'd succeeded, but I'll give you a spoiler for tomorrow - they didn't.    Read more

  • TravelerDarwin & the Top End 2016
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    Day 7

    Back to Darwin, and onwards

    June 15, 2016 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    As mentioned, last night's gunshots were rangers shooting at a crocodile. But apparently they missed - Wangi Falls was still closed in the morning. Though we did do a nice little walk around the side of the walls through the treetop forest, looking at the birds and various plants. Briefly considered the hike to the top but apparently you can't see the falls or the pool from the top which seems to rather defeat the point in my opinion!

    Back to the van and onwards. We decided to check out a little place still in Litchfield NP near Florence Falls that we'd seen yesterday, called Buley Rockhole. And it was a great decision, as the rockhole was absolutely beautiful. It was a series of small-ish pools and little waterfalls cascading into a creek about 200m in length. The water was super clear and pretty warm too, and very clean. No threat of crocodiles either since it's upstream from Florence Falls. Crocs can do a lot of things, but they can't climb waterfalls (yet).

    We spent quite a bit of time here, relaxing in the various pools and taking silly GoPro videos. Such a great little find, and still very unusual to me who's grown up in a coastal city with amazing beaches - swimming in fresh water is a novel concept sometimes. You don't emerge stinking of chlorine or covered in salt, which is a strange feeling!

    Back to the van for our last stop - about an hour northwards at Berry Springs. Similar to the Rockhole we'd visited earlier, this was a long creek with big plunge pools where the water was super clear and clean. Amusingly enough, there were signs saying the water is only infrequently monitored and can cause ear infections and gastro, and that swimming was not recommended. But then there's permanent swimming infrastructure built there - concreted pool surrounds, ladders and so on. Quite a few more people here so we had a nice swim but didn't stay for too long. One of the pools had a rope swing above it which I had a go on while a French backpacker filmed me - I'm hopeless as I don't have the upper body strength!

    Finally back to the car for the last leg of our journey. About another hour of driving and we arrived back at the depot in Darwin (after a brief stop to empty the septic tank - yuck), 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Cleaned out and farewelled the car, and then suddenly we were at the airport by 4pm for a 9pm flight! We sat around in a cafe for quite a while using the wifi; although our motorhome had a GPS device that could provide wifi, we'd been out of mobile reception for most of the trip and had a lot of internet catching-up-on to do!

    Salubrious dinner in Hungry Jacks, then a lovely discussion with a BORDER FORCE agent who crossly told me that if I wanted to claim the GST refund then I could fill in that form right there, and no I don't have a pen you can borrow, and you better fill in that form properly sonny or else you won't get any money back and no I'm not going to check it before you put it in the box. What a prick.

    The flight left Darwin a little late, but no matter. I watched the lights of my homeland slip away, knowing that I wouldn't be back for quite a while. But a whole new continent was beckoning!

    Our travel odyssey continues, check out the next trip for details!    Read more

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