Kakadu National Park

Early in the morning we went on to the entrance of Kakadu National Park where we looked for a geocache. At the time when Andi found the cache another couple arrived and it turned out that they were geocachers as well. He was a retired detective from Darwin. We took a couple of pictures and he even published them on the geocaching homepage. Afterward we headed to a bird viewing walk which had been recommended by Sandra and Lee. We then went to Bowali Visitors Center which turned out to show a very nice exhibition. We learned a lot about Aborigines: For example that they set fires in order to “clean” the earth (so that something new can develop) and also to protect some trees by burning down the area besides them (so that the tree can't catch fire during a big bush fire). They even knew that radiation was bad for them and so they defined a forbidden area around a place where Uran can be found. Afterwards we went on to Ubirr where we stayed overnight at Merl campground. We hiked along the Ubirr round walk, enjoyed some ranger talks and admired Aboriginal art. One of those paintings was very interesting because Aborigines thought that it was painted by Mimi spirits. The reason is that it was so high on top of the rocks and hardly reachable for humans. Afterwards we went up to Ubirr rock where we had a marvelous view over the area and we were able to see a breathtaking sunset. Back at Merl campground we soon searched for shelter in our campervan because of thousands of mosquitos.

In the morning we did one of the best walks in Kakadu NP. We walked through many different landscapes: sand, sandstone, wetlands and rain forest. Afterwards we went on to Jabiru, the biggest town in Kakadu NP. We bought some food and filled up the fuel. We also tried to seek a geocache, however the whole area where the cache should be was burnt down and thus we weren't able to find it. Later on we visited Nourlangie rock (the Aboriginal name is Anbangbang) where also lots of ancient Aboriginal drawings could be seen. After finding our second cache in the park we headed to Cooinda where we booked the Yellow Water sunset tour. It was quite expensive however every part of it was worth seeing. Our guide explained many things, for example he told us about a firestarter bird. This bird is very clever because when there is a fire somewhere he grabs a burning wooden branch and throws it somewhere else in the grass. Lots of smaller animals live there and lose their shelter, so he can grab them easily afterwards. We watched many birds (some of them can't be seen very often) and we also spotted some crocodiles. Our guide was also very funny: In the beginning he told us to put on our swim vest in case of an emergency, then form a circle in the water with him in the middle – to save him from the crocodiles! We also enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the river. Afterwards we went to Mardugal Campground where we spent the night. By the way, Kakadu NP is the largest national park in Australia and the only one in the world where an entire river lies within!