Leaving the Mary River area I travelled east along the Arnhem Highway. After crossing the mighty South Alligator River, I entered into amazing Kakadu National Park.
Many people “do” Kakadu in a day (sometimes even less), totally underestimating the sheer magnitude of this place.
But you would be doing yourself and this amazing place a terrible injustice.
Because you need to really appreciate the presence of Kakadu!
You need to understand the vast size of this place. Because Kakadu is HUGE! It covers 20,000 square kilometres, which makes it as big as some European countries.
You need to feel the timelessness of this amazing place. Areas of Kakadu hold evidence of the occupation of Aboriginal people going back 65,000 years.
You need to see the rich heritage of the Aboriginal culture. Amazing rock-art gives you a glimpse into past lives, their food, their creation ancestors and even their first contact with white people.
Everything about this part of the world is VAST.
As you travel through this massive landscape it is very easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of it. It is almost impossible to describe the vastness of this landscape.
You cannot capture its magnificence in photographs. It is just too BIG! I just didn’t even try. So, I actually have very few photos to share from Kakadu.
I first stayed at the uranium mining town of Jabiru, famous for its giant crocodile-shaped hotel (which presumably should be appreciated from the air, because from the ground is just a rather ugly, lumpy, green corrugated-iron building…)
I used Jabiru as my base to explore the northern part of the park. It is sobering to realise that Kakadu also encompasses the Ranger and Jabiluka uranium mining leases.
Sandy Billabong
Heading south in Kakadu, I turned down a six kilometre dirt road to Sandy Billabong.
This was a nice little campsite, near this beautiful billabong. Plenty of birdlife was evident, including the pretty little Pygmy-geese, the loud, honking Magpie geese, egrets and Whistling ducks.
I spotted this Little Kingfisher hunting beside the water in the evening.
