Darwin and Kakadu

Darwin is a busy modern city, with a turbulent history. Not only were early settlers constantly wiped out with disease and other tropical maladies, but it was frequently flooded and hit by cyclones. The worst cyclone ( Cyclone Tracy )to hit the town was in 1974 Mid night on Christmas Day when it became a Category 5 and winds of over 280 kms an hour almost wiped out the whole town, killed 400 people (most had left) and left a terrible scar on the morale of the townsfolk. They were also bombed repeatedly by the Japs during the Second World War, so they have had a lot to contend with. But to my mind the hardest part is the HOT WEATHER!! The tropics only have two seasons..”wet” monsoonal which is humid and very hot, and “dry”, less humid. Even though it is the ‘dry” season, days were almost always 35 deg and nights 25 deg. Also it is a VERY long way from anywhere...a long boring drive of hundreds of Kms to Darwin and then out again. Having said all that it had a certain vibrancy which comes from having a mix of many ethnic backgrounds. Being so close to Indonesia there were folk from the Asian countries that had made it home, as well as many from all parts of the world. It was teeming with tourists and backpackers, and the inevitable Victorians who all go “up north “ to escape their dreary cold winter. There were lots of colourful markets selling not only the usual clothes and souvenirs, but also some mouth watering food sold at stalls featuring all sorts of Asian and local delicacies. We went to a Sat morning market where we had lunch by trying tit bits from multiple stalls, and bought the biggest, reddest paw paw I have ever seen, and huge pineapples. We also went to the Mindle Beach Sunset markets which were set on the beach as the sun went down with buskers, side shows, people having champagne on the beach..and again the aromas from the dozens of wonderful food stalls. Darwin is not attractive as such. The beaches are often mud banks because of the huge tidal rivers, the vegetation not as tropical as one would expect (most of the big trees get blown away during cyclones! And the “dry” IS dry and dusty!) But it has a lot of atmosphere and tropical character and is a clean and modern city. We went to the excellent museum and art gallery. In the former they had a huge stuffed crocodile named Sweetheart who once had attacked dingy motors and tipping the occupants into the drink..something which made the fishermen a bit nervous..Understandably. Apparently Sweetheart thought the hum of the motors were other males (??) and so got all territorial. Unfortunately when they were trying to move him out of the area he got tangled and drowned. There are a lot of military museums and remnants of the WW2 camps, artilleries and other buildings dot the country. Darwin played a big role in protecting Australia during the war and even now there is a large army, navy and air force base. We tried our hand at fishing at a river mouth but had to be real careful cos the river was teeming with crocs. Our van park was very noisy because the whole town seems to be set around its huge airport so we had not only the Freeway noise, but jets taking off night and day. So after 5 days we left Darwin, having seen the best, had the car serviced, bought some new fishing tackle and prepared for the long drives ahead.
One of the biggest attractions for the overseas tourists is Kakadu national Park which is a World Heritage place not only for its scientific and ecological significance, but also for its cultural. It is a vast 20,000 sq km flood plain where the major rivers of the Northern Territory drain into the ocean, and in the “wet” they virtually flood the whole area making it one huge bird sanctuary. This is the place featured in Croc Dundee, and there are also Aboriginal paintings going back 300 000 years, and beautiful escarpments. Fishing is also good if you can avoid the huge number of monstrous Crocodiles. Once again we were blown away with the size of this land...what looked like a suburb of Darwin on the map, is actually a round trip of nearly 500 kms. Our first stop was near the Mary River which has the most crocs in the whole world! We found a spot on the bank which looked suitably steep (so steep we were almost slipping in) and went fishing one evening. As we fished we watched some really big crocs glide up and down the river. Next thing Paul caught a large Barramundi..one of the prize fish of the area..not only for its good eating but for its good fight! He was so thrilled, especially as the fish really prefer summer water temp above 30 Deg and are harder to catch in the “cooler” weather. It was tricky landing him on the steep bank without getting too close to the water, and then getting him up to a safer place to unhook him!
We went on a cruise on the famous “Yellow Water” billabong (a billabong is like an ox bow lake, a small lagoon in the dry season which is usually covered in lilies and reeds). This one is a huge stretch of wet land with reeds, Lotus lilies, thousands of birds and of course crocs. We did the early morning cruise ( dawn) and it was magical seeing the sun rise over the still water with the birds all flocking over the reeds and lily beds. We saw Jabiru, Brolgas (huge stork things) Large Fish eagles, colourful bee eaters and kingfishers, Kookaburras, and many other water birds...and the crocs of course. Lovely memories.We then started our long drive back through Katherine, and started heading west, passing some wonderful rock formations and ridges rising out of the generally arid and sparse landscape reminding us of the Kariba escarpment. We finally got to the West Australian border after two days driving, and I must say that I was pleased that we had passed through the NT and were now back in “our” state.