Kakadu It! (Nov 19 - Nov 22)

I left with Robert and the gang (Rob from Manchester, and Ingrid who was from another part of Holland) in the morning. We packed up the car with food and water and set off on our adventure. Our first stop was Litchfield National Park, I had already been there with Matt, but I was looking forward to showing my new crew all the cool things I already knew about Litchfield. Of course, by the time we arrived it was pouring with rain. It was still a great time though, not many people were at the nice spots because it was raining so that was ok. That first day we just went to the rockholes and stayed for an hour or two before heading to find a camping spot. It rained all night, so we ate dinner and had a few beers in the car sharing hilarious stories all night, it started off with trying to guess what we each did back home, and got more personal after that haha....pretttyyyyyy funny things were said, mostly from Ingrid LOL.

In the morning we went up to Florence falls, Rob and Robert did some cliff jumping, which was nothing compared to my previous jump off the top of the falls, but still nice..heh.. As soon as we went to go eat lunch the skies opened up and gave us a good lashing of rain to go with our instant noodles and bread..Mmm. At this point we were a bit fed up with the rain so we decided to head to Kakadu National Park. We arrived in Kakadu in the evening, and as it was obviously still raining we decided to stay in the backpackers at the entrance to the national park (Sidebar: Kakadu is ENORMOUS, it is actually the same size as Slovenia, and it has a town inside). As soon as we checked into the backpackers and started to cook, the rain stopped immediately and the skies cleared...smh. Even worse, the manager of the backpackers was a....hmm...*insert Australia's favourite word* but luckily we didn't have to deal with her too much.

There was a tour group there the same time as us, but they didn't look like they were having a great time for some reason. After we had our delicious dinner consisting of rice and vegetables, we sat outside drinking for a while, the tour group started playing a murder mystery game...which sounded pretty lame...But once they all went to bed the tour guide came and chilled with us for a while. He explained that the people in the tour group only bought about 4 beers between 8 people and then complained they didn't have enough beer. Anyway, the tour guide (Brett) turned out to be a really cool guy. He showed us some cool spots to go on the map and basically set up a private tour for us with some places that only tour groups went to. He also told us about a camp ground (with cabins and kitchen area etc) that is normally used by Adventure Tours that was not in use at the moment, so we had a potentially sweet place to camp. Thanks Brett!

We set off quite early to avoid the rain and get the most out of the day. Our first stop was Moline Falls, which was ok, nice and secluded spot, I also got a sweet spider pic while there. Next we went to Motorcar Falls, now THIS was impressive. Really high waterfall, 300ft I think, and nobody else around except a tour group of around 6 people. The tour operator was a bit suprised to see us because this waterfall isn't marked on the map, you just have to know it's there. There isn't even signs at the path, you need to walk for about an hour on a trail then you see one sign that says Motorcar Falls.. top secret falls. This was probably one of the better water falls I've seen in OZ, and believe me I have see A LOT. Of course as we finished our walk and began preparing lunch it started to rain (for some strange reason it always rained when we were eating, regardless of what time we ate), but luckily this time we had a private and free camp ground thanks to Adventure Tours and Brett. This became our home base while in Kakadu, normally to use the camp grounds (with your own tents) you need to pay $10 per night and $25 just to be in the park..Ha..

The one problem I had with Kakadu was the march flies, these devil spawns were relentless and came in all sizes and colours from every direction. The bites hurt AND are itchy... ridiculous. Anyway, we were safe in our cabin, because it was FULL of spiders, we cleared out as many as we could from around the beds we were sleeping in, and I still haven't had any spider babies climbing out of my ears or hair so I think it worked.

The next day we got going a bit late in the morning because we were enjoying our home base too much. It was such a relaxing place and it was sheltered. We eventually made it to a spot called Naurlangle where we saw some rock paintings that were around 1000 years old, there was also an amazing look out that gave a nice view of Dream Rock (just a big rock, with some sort of significance to the Aboriginal people in the area, pretty cool). The next destination was Ubirr, which was a rock art site and an amazing look out, might be the best look out I've been too in OZ. Absolutely stunning views all the way around, it made the march flies and any other inconveniences irrelevant and silly.

We waited at the top of Ubirr for the sunset, which filled the sky with bright orange and purple. But as the sun was going down, a lightning storm was brewing over the trees. This created an epic scene, sunset on one side and lightning storm on the other. As I was standing there not sure which side to watch I tried to imagine how on EARTH could I capture something like this in words and images alone. It was something that your really had to see to understand how awesome it was. After the sunset as we were driving back to home base we went straight through the lightning storm, which was pretty intense, but luckily it was dry at the site.

Before going to Kakadu a lot of travellers told me that Kakadu wasn't worth the effort unless you had a four wheel drive, and that there were too many flies and mosquitoes. But after seeing all that I did there, and having such a good experience I can't say I share their distaste for the place. Just get out there and enjoy it!

Peace & Love