Nature's way

Hi everybody. This has been the longest break I have taken from blogging so far. Events in the career front got too heated up leaving little spare time and energy for everything else. Anyway, I am back in action with a post on my recent trip to Kakadu on the Nature's way loop.

Kakadu has been on the itinerary since the day I landed in Darwin. Finding a weekend when all of us were free took a while though. We picked the most uncomfortable time of the year to travel to Kakadu.

Unlike most other places, Australia's Top End has only two seasons. The 'Dry' is between March to October, when its warm and pleasant with clear skies. That is when tourists from all over visit Northern Territory.

The other half of the year, the 'Wet' is when heat, incessant rains and if you get lucky, a few cyclones keep everyone in there homes. The interlude between the two, in the October, is the 'build-up'. That's when heat slowly climbs to unbearable levels and moisture reaches 100%, enough to make you not leave the air-con, or run back to where ever you came from. Once it starts raining, the moisture climbs down a bit providing some relief.

Its in that hot, sticky October that I planned the visit to Kakadu. Being the end of dry means that all the water bodies and falls were reduced to a trickle.

Kakadu's landscape takes a distinct hue each season. The Wet has huge areas of flooding, overflowing water falls, green landscapes and fantastic views from the air. In the Dry, millions of birds fly from the north to take refuge in the pleasant weather, until the heat starts building up when they escape back to cooler northern hemisphere. Many places that will not be accessible during the Wet due to the flooding will open up to the tourists in the Dry.

Kakadu is on the UNESCO heritage list, and one of the very few that is on the list both for natural beauty and cultural value. Aboriginals lived in this place for about 60,000 years or more and are the traditional owners of the entire park. The place is rich with ancient rock-art and signs of human activity going back millennia.

Nature’s Way drive is a loop from Darwin through Kakadu and back to Darwin covering approximately 900km.

We started early in the morning just before sunrise. The first stop was at the banks of the South Aligator river where we recharged ourselves with fulfilling tapioca and fish, and headed off to Mamukala. Mamukala Wetlands are marshes with an abundance of birds and wildlife, where a covered observation deck allows us to sit and view the birds at leisure. There was a few moments of excitement as we watched a large kangaroo hop about at the edge of the marshes.

After a short stop at the Bowali visitor centre, where we gathered enough info and maps of accessible routes, we headed off to the Nourlangie Rock, Kakadu’s second most famous rock art site.

A short loop walk led us past several art sites to the main Anbangbang rock shelter. Nabulwinjbulwinj, the evil spirit and the images of the dancing men were probably the most impressive images. The view from the top of the rock was beautiful.

After a careful climb-down, we visited the Anbangbang billabong. Filled with native birds and with the hulking Nourlangie Rock as its background, it’s one of Kakadu’s signature scenes.

The most awaited destination of the day was Ubirr, the most famous of Kakadu's 5000 recorded art sites. Watching the sunset from the top of Ubirr with the unobstructed views over the floodplains and escarpment was every minute as good as has been told to me multiple times by everyone who has been there before.

We reached our rented cabins late in the evening, very tired and exhausted and went to sleep early after a barbecue. After all, we did not want to be late for what was awaiting tomorrow. A cruise on Yellow Water Billabong just as the sun was rising was definitely the high point of the tour. We started in misty flood plains and spotted a huge variety of birds. I was surprised at the density of salt water crocodiles in those waters. In fact within the two hours, I must have spotted about three dozen of them, from smaller ones, to ones more than four metres.

After a brief stop at the Maguk water falls, we proceeded to our last stop in Kakadu, the Gunlom falls.

The waterfall at Gunlom was only a trickle, but the pool below was a good spot for swimming. We decided to climb the huge rock, onto the top of the waterfall. Given our fitness levels, it took lots of sweat, gaspings and stops before we reached the top. There were beautiful small pools at the top and gorgeous panoramic views of the entire south Kakadu region. We soaked for a while in the pools and returned back to the ground, to start our journey back home to Darwin.

On the whole, the trip has been every bit as good as I expected. I am already busily planning a return to Kakadu in the Wet season, hopefully with an arial view of the flodded plains of Kakadu.