Kakadu NP

Note: You can find Nils and Sebastian's pictures from here
Nils and Sebastian are travelling in my van since Cairns....
More pictures can be found in Ash and Mel's blog


I was planning to skip the whole Kakadu national park in the first place since I'm running really out of my time here in Australia. Luckily the people I'm travelling with convinced me to go and I learnt and saw much during the 5 nights we stayed in the national park.

James and the tall Sebastian had some unfinished business in Darwin so we promised to met them in Katherine. We then headed to Kakadu with three cars and seven people: Andy and Jonas, Ash and Mel and my car with Nils and Sebastian. On the way the Mel and Ash showed us some local knowledge by pulling over next to a mango farm and pretty innocently borrowing couple of the fallen mangoes inside the fence. I have to admit that these mangoes tasted superb and I could reckon them as my favourite fruit.


Andy has a fishing rod but he had never fished before so we headed to a local fishing shop before leaving Darwin. We got some really good tips and bought some lures since fishing with baits was forbidden in Kakadu. On the first night we drove rugged dirt road to a "two mile hole" -camping site and we were the only persons there. There was a river with crocodiles just next to campsite and it felt really weird not to be able to go close to the murky water. We ended up fishing anyway from safe distance but had to have a little break after losing few lures to the underwater branches. We decided to try again though and this time Jonas got something on his throw. We first though that we lost another lure to the branches, but after a little struggling Jonas pulled out a nice catfish. Luckily we stopped at that baitshop before heading to Kakadu and they told us that we shouldn't never handle catfish with bare hands since they have a fairly poisonous spikes somewhere in their body. We let the catfish go loose with the help of pliers. After that our line got really tangled and it was already so dark that we decided to go make some healthy pasta instead.

Next morning I woke up when Andy was calling me outside the van. He had got up early and was now proudly shaking his first fish, barramundi, in front of my sleepy eyes. I used to clean some of the fish back home when I was a kid so I tried to remember and give Andy some tips how to prepare the fish. Eventually we roasted barra filets on the open fire. Tasted allright but heaps of bones. Andy told that now he's become a man.

We then headed to Ubirr which supposed to had some nice aboriginal art and, of course, a good river for fishing and crocodile spotting as well. The art was indeed impressive but more impressive was the idea that most of the art was thousands of years old and there were interesting stories behind the paintings. Some paintings were superimposed so you could see different stories painted over each other. (I had to use the word "superimposed" in this entry). On the evening we climbed to a lookout to see the pretty sunset over vast Kakadu national park. It was a good time to think about it.


We spent two days camping next to Ubirr and on the second day we went to a cruise on nearby river. We were really keen to see some crocodiles and didn't got disappointed since we spotted both saltwater crocodiles(salties) and a freshwater one(freshie). The guide was an aboriginal girl and she also told us interesting stuff about the original ways of living. One of the interesting details was the local punishment system. If an aboriginal commits a crime he's punished by the aboriginese laws, which usually involves beating with a stick or a spear and then he's punished by the white law as well. Hard life. After enjoying the sunset again on the lookout, we went to see what's happening at Cahill's river crossing. As soon as we arrived there we heard heaps of splashes and when we turned our flashlight towards water we realized that it was full of fishes. After a while searching we could see pairs of gleaming eyes. The crocodiles were watching...We spent quite a long time just scanning the waters. I enjoyed my time here.

Next day we went to Maguk through a 4wd track. We made some enquiries about the road beforehand and were told that there's only one sandy part but we could floor our 2wd's through it. After the Gulf track I was not worried about little sand. The track went without problems until the sandy part came and Jonas and Andy's car, the Misty Yellow, was the first to get bogged to the soft sand. We pushed it out though and I showed next how to make my van, the Lulu, fly over the soft sand. Girls followed also without problems with their Sexy Rexxy.


Maguk or barramundi gorge was another paradise with a waterfall. Absolutely amazing place all again and the rockpools on the top of the waterfall were really impressive. There were good options for rock jumping again and Nils made a pretty impressive 10m+ jump to one of the deep rock pools. The day was quite challenging and we hung around in the water for hours just cooling down from the unbearable heat. We tentatively planned to get into our next destination and to check out the sunset there but didn't quite make it. On our way to the next waterfall the Misty Yellow run out of petrol so we got a bit delay. Andy tried to suck some petrol out of the girl's van but not succesfully enough but luckily Nils and Sebastian wanted to do some late evening exercise and they pushed the Misty to a nice lookout point. We then could see the sunset there while girls were getting some petrol for the poor Misty.

Next day we went to Gunlom falls. So many waterfalls that you get this same kind of phenomenom than in NZ. You just get spoiled by the scenery. Well we went swimming anyway and in my head I was looking forward to getting back on my surfboard. When I was back on my van I met two swedish girls who had sailed all the way from Sweden to Australia. Down south the Europe, across the Atlantic and Panama channel. They were travelling in a group of four and had bought 27ft 40 year old sailing boat for 6000 euros each. They were heading next to Indonesia and planned to spend their christmas in Thailand. Way of life!

We drove to Katherine after a nice swim and met James and Sebastian there. Sebastian had bought himself a van so now we had five cars in our convoy. Impressive sight and we're making many local friends who are trying to get past us on the highway.