Kakadu and crocs, crocs, crocs!

We were pretty impressed with the scenery in and around Katherine Gorge, so Kakadu was going to have to throw something good at us to beat it. Of course being a World Heritage site probably helps, so our expectations were quite high as we pulled into our next spot at Bark Hut Inn.

One problem with Kakadu is that it is enormous. If we’d thought about it more carefully we might have done it a bit differently and put the dog into a kennel and stayed within the park itself. But we didn’t think of that until it was too late so instead we put the dog in a kennel for three nights and made daily trips out to the park. There was a fair bit of driving in that, but I don’t think there’s much avoiding driving when Kakadu itself is a couple of hundred km’s in either direction.  Anyway, dog was happy as it was a three-day dog fest with sleepovers.

As is our way, we spent the first day at Bark Hut Inn doing nothing but hanging out (working, schooling, sorting things out, swimming in their excellent pool). They have a really nice bar and restaurant there, but unfortunately even the beer garden isn’t dog-friendly (we had the dog for the first couple of nights there). It could have something to do with the 4.5 metre crocodile (Harry) who lives in the beer garden too?

After we dropped the dog off we visited Fogg Dam which is a really interesting area of wetlands. You can’t walk along the dam wall (might get eaten) but you can drive along it. So we did that, and spotted a croc at the viewing platform at the other end. We did one of the walks there which was all on boardwalks and had a very fast picnic lunch before the mozzies got us.

Later that afternoon we did the jumping crocodile cruise on the Adelaide River. Some people have issues with the jumping crocodile cruises because they’re essentially feeding the crocs to get them to jump (rather than just observing them in their natural habitat). We considered all this and decided that you can’t really judge something until you’ve tried it yourself. As it turned out, it was pretty well done (I thought). The boats don’t approach the crocs at all, just hang out in the middle of the river and wait and see if the croc is interested in visiting the boat. Even then, if they don’t want to jump up or eat then that’s fine, we just watch them for a bit and move on. That happened with the first croc who was a bigger, older one. The second and third ones were happy to jump up, have a snack and move on their way.

What was interesting there was just how many crocs there were (35 per square km apparently – the highest concentration of anywhere).

The next day it was time to head out to Kakadu. We had another, far more expensive cruise booked through the Kakadu wetlands. This one had been recommended to us by all sorts of people so we figured that we’re only here once so we better do it. I don’t know what the definition of “croc-infested waters” is but given that we saw a croc within about 30 seconds of leaving the dock I’d say this is probably it. Here they are at around 30 per square km. All of them were saltwater crocs. They are territorial, but because there’s so much food there they are happy to have a much smaller territory. The big crocs still rule, but there’s room for everyone.

I don’t even know how many we saw (lots), and there was some great birdlife there too. Apparently crocs don’t really like birds (can’t digest feathers well) so the birds were playing chicken with the crocs (even though most of them were ducks), standing next to their heads and hanging out in their space.

Interestingly, our guide was a bit disparaging of the jumping croc cruises, yet had no issue driving the boat right up to a croc resting on the shore (and actually parking it, about a metre from them). Personally I think as a croc I’d find that far more annoying than someone offering me a snack that I could choose to go and get (or not).

But the scenery was spectacular. There is this enormous grassland there which is actually entirely floating. As the water level rises, the whole field rises up too, and all the roots are knitted together well enough so you can walk on it (well not us, but crocs and buffalo).

After the cruise we did a short walk to look at some Aboriginal rock art, and up to a couple of quite spectacular lookouts. We’re keeping the walks as short as we can because it’s hot – no 22km walks around here like I did in King’s Canyon!

As I mentioned, it was a lot of driving, so after the two-hour drive back to camp we had time for a quick swim in the pool, dinner and bed before doing it all again the next day.

The next day we choose a few sites that were a bit closer (1.5 hour drive instead of 2!). We started at Ubirr which has some really good (and very old – 5,000 years in some parts) Aboriginal artwork, plus another lookout with spectacular views.

Then we drove just down the road to Cahill’s Crossing. This is a water crossing for vehicles to get through to the private land on the other side (and beyond). We’re avoiding water crossings as much as possible because we need the car to stay in one piece, and in particular we’re avoiding crossings through croc-infested water. And this one definitely meets the definition of croc-infested. I’ve never seen so many in one spot. At one point we counted about 10 and I’d say that there’d be at least that again that were underwater or hidden away on the bank, all in a space of a couple of hundred metres. There were some huge ones in there too. We spent a very entertaining hour or so watching the crocs cruise up and down the river and the watching the cars cross it as well.

After this we did another short walk (about 3km or so) that had been recommended by the information centre lady. It wasn’t the best of the walks as it was next to a billabong, but because you can’t get very close to the water you couldn’t really see it, so it was just a bit of a walk around in the bush in the heat. We headed home after that and had a nice relaxing swim in the pool followed by a drink or two in the bar (now that we were dog-free) where we saw Harry get his second meal of the week.

Overall our Kakadu experience was pretty spectacular. We didn’t see it all of course, but I’m not sure that many do given the size of it. I feel like we saw the best of it though and we certainly got our money’s worth with the croc spotting. Bark Hut Inn was a great place to stay too.

But it was time to go, collect the dog and finally see the coastline after a long time inland. We had lunch on the foreshore in Darwin, next to the sea that we last saw in Glenelg, Adelaide, back in early May. Since then, we’ve travelled over 8,000km, through a huge variety of landscapes in the Adelaide Hills, Flinders Ranges, Peterborough, Oodnadatta Track, Marree, Coober Pedy, Uluru, King’s Canyon, West MacDonnell Ranges, Alice Springs, Katherine and then Kakadu. All in two months!

It almost all came unstuck in there with a combination of the prolonged brutally cold and wet weather, sickness and a couple of unfortunate incidents (bye bye Starlink V.1 and yet another solar panel), but we got through it, and we’re about to mark day 300 on the road.