Day 29 Darwin to Kakadu National Park

It was another hot night, and in some ways it was good to get up and get going this morning.  We had a lazy pack up and were about to leave when our young man came hobbling up the road with his knees skinned again.  There isn't much bark left on the poor boy anymore.  He seems hell bent on flaying off as much of his skin as possible.

We patched him up with a bandaid and a lollipop, collected the other 2 kids from the jumping pillow and headed off to Kakadu National Park.  I have again got not preconceptions about this park, and from what I have heard, Litchfield's waterfalls are just as beautiful, so I was open minded about what we were going to see.

First stop was at Jabiru for lunch.  Pies from the bakery.  I was fortunate to wash mine down with a vanilla slice as well, but we were able to stock up on bread.  We made a quick grocery stop at Foodland and picked up what looked like some awesome Scotch Fillet and sausages for dinner. 

Next stop was Ubirr which is renowned for its ancient rock art, and it didn't disappoint either.  On the road in, there was a section under water which had several water birds strutting around including a Jabiru. 

There were several galleries along the way which were all spectacular and showed the different eras of of artistry.  It is apparent that our early inhabitants had great pleasure in drawing their fish and turtles, and in some cases depicted stories about war and morality.  (or so they say)  It was quite awe inspiring knowing that many of the artworks were over 1000 years old.  Some of them were located in positions entirely inaccessible from the ground today, so

either there used to be a tree there, or the rock formation has eroded over time, because I'm pretty sure that an elevated work platform would have been hard to find 5000 years ago. 

 

I also took time to go to the lookout at the top of a large rock formation and got great photographs of the rocky formations on one side of the lookout.  The other side was a glorious looking wetland, but it had just caught fire, and was merrily burning and belching smoke everywhere.  Gotta love the Ausie bush.  Rowan managed to get his leg wedged in a crevasse on the way up to the lookout and let out a blood curdling scream which attracted the attention of the park ranger.  He is of course totally fine and a bandaid and jellybeans were cure enough to soothe him again….*SIGH*

It was starting to get on in the day and we decided to skip the visitors centre and head straight over to Nourlangie Rock.   This is another art gallery preserved for thousands of years.  This site was much better than the other, with much clearer paintings and better preserved drawings.  My personal favourite was Nabulwinjbulwinj (Nar bull win bull win) who was a nasty little spirit that smashed the ladies with a spud (Yam) and then ate them...Oh the joys of womanhood!

There was also a lightning god who had been angered by the infidelity of a woman and made her leave a symbol of her infidelity on the rock for all to see.  Can't remember the dudes name now, but interesting story all the same.  We are staying tonight at Cooinda at the Gagudju lodge.  Tomorrow at sparrows, we have to get up for the yellow water cruise.  Looking forward to that.