Kakadu

Boxing croc at Humpty Doo

Rock art at Ubirr

Sunset at Ubirr

Our first day in Kakadu - wow. We left Litchfield NP this morning, stopping briefly at the town with the coolest name – Humpty Doo – for fuel, ice and supermarket, plus a quick photo of the big boxing crocodile, and made it to the campground at Ubirr in time to set up lightnight fast. We were trying to make the set of ranger talks starting at the rock art sites at Ubirr at 4.30, and we managed to only miss the first one. The rock art sites there just blew my mind, so much better than any others we’ve seen, and just so much of them. We thought they were better than the ones at Uluru, but realised that it’s possibly because they’ve been retouched about 20 years ago or more. I think certain people who belong to the relevant dreaming are allowed to retouch only the relevant painting (ie the turtle dreaming person can retouch the pictures of the long necked turtle), but they’re still amazing. Walls and walls of them, and those are only the ones that the public are allowed to see, not the private ones. There are quite a few pictures of people, some with dilly bags and some with spear throwers, some spirit people, some hand prints, plus lots and lots of barramundi, turtles, wallabies, goannas (basically what people used to eat), and even a Tasmanian tiger, which shows how far up the country they used to live. There was even a picture of a westerner smoking a pipe, and a few pictures of mullet with their heads snapped off, which was apparently the way to stop them getting back into the water.

The final talk was on the top of a lookout over the wetlands which had stunning views in every direction, it was a beautiful place, very peaceful with sounds of birds below, and it was timed so that the sun set about 20 minutes after the talk had finished. There was a crowd of people up there, as watching the sunset from there is the ‘thing’ to do around here, but it didn’t detract from the moment at all, as everyone was just sitting there quietly, watching, taking it in (except our kids). A great way to finish the day and an exciting introduction to Kakadu – I think part of it was just that I’m excited to be here to be honest.