Northern Territory recap #1: Kakadu National Park
Mood: 
|| Busy
Tune : n/a
Kakadu National Park
March 28: I went on a daytrip to Kakadu National Park, the largest national park in Australia measuring about 20,000 square kilometers. I had planned to go to Litchfield National Park instead because it seemed much cooler with all the waterfalls, but unfortunately all tours for that were booked full for today so I decided to go for Kakadu instead.
Kakadu is about a 3 hour drive from Darwin which meant if we wanted to see it properly we had to leave really early in the morning. As in 6.30am in the city. Which meant we had to leave even earlier than that from Kel's house and her mum was so awesome to drop me off. I tried to stay awake for the bus trip so I could see the scenery on our way but it was a lot of the same stuff. It was very green (I still can't believe this! I thought the Northern Territory or the "outback" as they call it, was all dessert-y like and covered in red dirt. I was so wrong) with heaps of trees and plants that can withstand savanna temperatures.
Our first stop was an outback bar called "The Walkabout Hotel", which at the time I thought was a random stop. Only afterwards I found out through Kel it's actually the bar from Crocodile Dundee which is pretty cool. Our bus driver for this tour wasn't good though, he should've pointed this out. His commentary was annoying as well, he's start a sentence, leave a gap of a full minute and then finish it.
Even though I didn't know this pub was famous, I took a few pictures of the funny signs inside
After quite a long drive our next stop was Nourlangie Rock, well known for the aboriginal art paintings on the rocks. We took about half an hour walking around the various galleries while listening to information about the different drawings. It was really interesting. Then a few people from our group did the longer walk to the look-out which gave us a great view on Nourlangie Rock, the rocks surrounding it and even the Arnhem Plateau in the distance.
Arnhem plateau
Our next stop was the Warrandjan Aboriginal Cultural Center, which was like a small museum on the aboriginal culture and quite interesting. We only had about thirty minutes there though which was barely enough to read all the displays in the exhibition.
I loved the toilet signs
The last thing we did in Kuranda was a cruise on the Yellow Water Billabong. I half expected it to be exactly the same as the cruise I had done up in Kuranda National Park in Queensland and while crocodile spotting was a major part of this cruise as well the environment was so significantly different and stunning it was a whole different cruise. I loved the flood lands we saw and especially the fields of lilies were beautiful.
Because of the floods the drive to the boat in the bus was... interesting. As you can see we drove through quite deep water as the bus zone can be seen in this picture
We saw a crocodile in the wild again
Lilies!
Sea eagles
The way back home was spent sleeping, as I spent so many bus trips already. Unfortunately the second bus driver was an idiot too and upon asking if he could drop me off at the bus terminal (so I could catch my next bus) he said he would drop me off at the transit center. Which is not the same... That's mostly for day tours and the airport shuttle bus. I tried to explain it to him but he kept insisting he was right. So in the end I missed my bus and had to wait 1 hour *grumbles*
More pictures from Kakadu can be found HERE.
|| Busy
Tune : n/a
Kakadu National Park
March 28: I went on a daytrip to Kakadu National Park, the largest national park in Australia measuring about 20,000 square kilometers. I had planned to go to Litchfield National Park instead because it seemed much cooler with all the waterfalls, but unfortunately all tours for that were booked full for today so I decided to go for Kakadu instead.
Kakadu is about a 3 hour drive from Darwin which meant if we wanted to see it properly we had to leave really early in the morning. As in 6.30am in the city. Which meant we had to leave even earlier than that from Kel's house and her mum was so awesome to drop me off. I tried to stay awake for the bus trip so I could see the scenery on our way but it was a lot of the same stuff. It was very green (I still can't believe this! I thought the Northern Territory or the "outback" as they call it, was all dessert-y like and covered in red dirt. I was so wrong) with heaps of trees and plants that can withstand savanna temperatures.
Our first stop was an outback bar called "The Walkabout Hotel", which at the time I thought was a random stop. Only afterwards I found out through Kel it's actually the bar from Crocodile Dundee which is pretty cool. Our bus driver for this tour wasn't good though, he should've pointed this out. His commentary was annoying as well, he's start a sentence, leave a gap of a full minute and then finish it.
Even though I didn't know this pub was famous, I took a few pictures of the funny signs inside
After quite a long drive our next stop was Nourlangie Rock, well known for the aboriginal art paintings on the rocks. We took about half an hour walking around the various galleries while listening to information about the different drawings. It was really interesting. Then a few people from our group did the longer walk to the look-out which gave us a great view on Nourlangie Rock, the rocks surrounding it and even the Arnhem Plateau in the distance.
Arnhem plateau
Our next stop was the Warrandjan Aboriginal Cultural Center, which was like a small museum on the aboriginal culture and quite interesting. We only had about thirty minutes there though which was barely enough to read all the displays in the exhibition.
I loved the toilet signs
The last thing we did in Kuranda was a cruise on the Yellow Water Billabong. I half expected it to be exactly the same as the cruise I had done up in Kuranda National Park in Queensland and while crocodile spotting was a major part of this cruise as well the environment was so significantly different and stunning it was a whole different cruise. I loved the flood lands we saw and especially the fields of lilies were beautiful.
Because of the floods the drive to the boat in the bus was... interesting. As you can see we drove through quite deep water as the bus zone can be seen in this picture
We saw a crocodile in the wild again
Lilies!
Sea eagles
The way back home was spent sleeping, as I spent so many bus trips already. Unfortunately the second bus driver was an idiot too and upon asking if he could drop me off at the bus terminal (so I could catch my next bus) he said he would drop me off at the transit center. Which is not the same... That's mostly for day tours and the airport shuttle bus. I tried to explain it to him but he kept insisting he was right. So in the end I missed my bus and had to wait 1 hour *grumbles*
More pictures from Kakadu can be found HERE.