Kakadu
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2007
1
36
48
Trip End
Dec 24, 2007
Darwin,
Australia
Monday, October 22, 2007
To get to Kakadu, I flew into Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. People from Darwin have a reputation for being a bit thick. So it was no surprise when they all got off the plane and lined up to collect their baggage from carousel one at the airport. And the baggage came out of carousel two. This had been clearly sign posted.
I went with a tour group to Kakadu - it's a bit difficult to do on your own. The group was generally a good bunch, except for one French girl: Celine. Normally, being French is enough in itself for someone to annoy me. But Celine was particularly irritating. She whinged about the heat; she whinged abouyt the flies; she whinged about the food. In short, she was whinger.
On the way to Kakadu, we stopped at the Adelaide river (nowhere near Adelaide, in case you were wondering). The main attraction here is the "flying crocs". This is where they take you on a boat along the river, and dangle bits of meat over the side. The crocodiles jump out of the water, and catch the meat. The crocs seem to find catching the meat difficult, and need two or three attempts, but it makes for some great photos. (See below).
Go on son. Imagine it's Robin Ryde.
Kakadu itself was fantastic - even if it is the wrong time of year to be here. I'm here in the "build up". This is the run up to the wet season where it's hot and humid every day, but it won't rain to clear the air. There's loads of flies, mosquitos and cockroaches which is a bit annoying. But if you drink plenty of water, and don't scratch the mosquito bites, you soon get used to the conditions.
We spent most of the time hiking and swimming. Swimming is fun, and a great way to cool off. But it's a bit disconcerting when every stream, bilabong and swimming hole has a big sing next to it saying: "Danger: Crocodiles. Do not swim.". But the guide said that this is just the authorities getting overzealous and there hadn't been any crocodile related fatalities in Kakadu this year. There's always a first time for everything though, and I was rooting for it to be Celine. But I was disappointed. As for myself, I consoled myself that to escape corocdiles, you don't need to be able to swim fast; you just need to be able to swim faster than the fat American tourist next to you.
The cane toad - a pest imported to Queensland from Hawaii which is killing the local wildlife - has just reached Kakadu. I hadn't seen on before. At one of the swimming holes the guide pointed out where the cane toads liked to congregate. So I swam out to have a look at them with a couple of the Germans from my tour group. They are ugly, smelly creatures. And so are cane toads - much bigger than your average British toad. We found loads, but didn't dare sampe the high that you are supposed to get from licking them.
I'm off to Broome next. I have to rush the trip between Darwin and Broome because the rains are due in soon, and they close the roads when the wet season hits. I'll update the blog a bit more when I get there.
