The Top End of Australia: June 1999
Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Katherine Gorge Region

Kakadu National Park
Day One
We arrived in Darwin in the evening and had to catch a bus to town and find a hostel since you have to reserve hostels in advance or you are not guaranteed a bed that night. We found one a bit outside the main downtown area and while the mattresses really sucked on the bunk beds the owners were very congenial and friendly and helpful. They let us keep our large packs in storage when we left the next morn for Kakadu National Park on a 3 day outback tour. It was a full Toyota Landcruiser, our guide Mick was a slight blond fellow. We picked up the other travellers, a British couple, some Irish women. Eveyone was very upbeat and we were off on our 6 hour drive into the park. On our way into the park we managed to run over a wallaby that ran into the road. Mick had to stop the car off the road to smoke and recover. He was visibly upset. Kakadu is a huge wetland and areas of escarpment rise up along the eastern edge in Arnhem Land, a huge aboriginal reserve where non-aboriginal cannot go without permission from the government. The land was considered worthless by the government but was discovered to have huge reserves of uranium. Some areas near Jabiru are mined and it is very controversial. We went to look at ancient rock paintings. Some of these paintings date back 10's of thousands of years. Some have been painted over. Many tell stories of the Dream Time or sacred law. We saw some of the fish paintings called X-ray style since they show the inside of the fish as well. It is very hot in the north even during the Dry season. Many birds flock here to use the water holes as they become smaller and smaller since it rarely will rain here again until September. Aboriginals and park rangers burn the grasses with controlled fires in the fall to keep forest fires at bay. We saw all sorts of lovely birds like the Jabiru and the sea eagle. Cockatoos and wild dingoes were abundant along the side of the road as we travelled. Unfortunately wild animals frequently crossed into our paths and we nailed a wallaby and a number of large birds which would not get out of the road til we approached and then flew into the car. It was very upsetting to everyone. We saw huge termite mounds up close and got to see an area where the movie Crocodile Dundee was filmed. We took a river cruise on the Yellow River and saw huge crocodiles and abundant birdlife and a gorgeous sunset. Kakadu is also known for its vicious mosquito population and we had to protect ourselves against Ross River virus and encephalitis since there had been some outbreaks. The best thing to do is to stand in the smoke of the campfire and they attacked out hands and any exposed flesh and left huge welts we itched all the next morning. DEET works well but can be somewhat toxic so be careful. A pin had broken in our trailer so we had to make dinner with another group and this is where I met a nemesis Simon, another guide and man I had this intense hatred for. He was a typical jerk. He lives out in the Outback since he can't live among normal people very long obviously. A Male chauvinist and bossy too. Simon tried to get all us girlie girls to get the dinner ready for his and our group. He tended the fire and worked to get the pin fixed with Mick. Then we found a new campground near a Billabong (small pond) and were very tired and pitched our tents which made me angry since I was having a lot of trouble doing it in the dark. But we finally got it up. We had small thin pads to lie on, better than the hard earth at Fraser tho. I get cranky when I am tired.

Day Two
Today was a day that will live in infamy. Well, when Australians say you have to be "fit" to do something. They don't mean in relatively ok form, they mean like can you run a marathon in under 4 hours! Sheez. So we packed up our day bags, filled our canteens after we ate breaky and went off with the landcruiser to 4WD track on the way to Jim Jim Falls. The Twin Falls area nearby was closed due to a large croc and you have to swim to get to the falls, soo.... that was right out. We got to Jim Jim parking area after an hour or two of driving. At one point a large truck had tried to drive into the road (4WD only) and gotten stuck and was trying to back back up to get out (a mile or so in). At the base of the escarpment which is about 300 feet high, Mick explained that we had better keep up or else we would hate him by the end of the trip. Not a good sign in my book. One woman had bad knees and was hyperventilating and we had not gone far. So Deirdre told the woman it is not worth your life to do this so the lady and her husband went to bask at the beach at the base of the falls all day while we struggled up that damn steep long treacherous path which is basically a stream bed of rocks. It is hardly a well cut path. There was another way up but much steeper tho shorter. Another man had bad knees and Deirdre's knees were bothering her so they kept up the rear. It was so hot you have no idea. We rested once we got on top of the escarpment. My joke was that now I know what a death march feels like. We then travelled on top of a relatively flat bit of hard rock to the falls which were below us and we had to scramble down rock at angles to each other to get down. Finally we were there with breathtaking view of the park and see the little ants at the beach. I asked Mick if anyone had ever fallen off, he said yes. Behind the falls was a swimming area so many people jumped in. The water was cold. I didn't swim. We ate lunch under an overhang by the lip of the falls. Simon was there. Yuck. I had such an aversion to him people thought I liked him. Then we had to climb back down. I would have preferred rappeling myself. It was a nightmare of just putting one foot in front of the other and not looking down and trying to keep from falling when it was 90 degrees out and you are so tired you want to drop. It was definitely THE most extreme physical thing I have ever done in my entire life. After this all other climbs are on the Jim Jim Falls meter. Even Ayer's Rock only came in at an 8 compared to Jim Jim. So Deirdre was really having trouble on the way back down the steepest part. Mick really pushed us. He had no trouble and would often be far ahead of us. He told us to tell him if we felt faint or nauseous (heat stroke). Often there were just small triangle signs to guide us among the rocks along the mostly unmarked trail. Finally we got to the bottom ALIVE and it wasnt over. He had us fill our waterbottles. Always here I was amazed at how clear and unpolluted water could be and how clear and unpolluted air could be! A sad commentary for our times. So Deirdre finally sat down and would not continue. We were on a river bed full of huge boulders to maneuver over to get to the beach and D said she would wait til we returned to go back to the car. I finally got to that beach, went behind a convenient boulder to change and plunged into that ice cold water at the base of the falls. My whole body was overheated and it was like being reborn to be in that water. I told the people who stayed behind how lucky they were. I made my way back to the car first so I could sit in the front seat. If you are in the front you ride shotgun. They are not familiar with that term but as the sun was setting the driver needs to concentrate on the sandy road and the front seat passenger has to look out for cars coming the other way since it is one lane only and very twisty turny at that. Mick's musical taste I mainly liked but he insisted on playing Bjork after dark when we were all very tired on the drive back. I really thought I was going to lose my mind. I offered to make him a music tape from America which he readily agreed to. The people in the car nearly staged a mutiny and got him to go to a store not too far from the campground, tho he didnt want to go there, to buy soda or cigarettes or candy or chips. We really needed our addictions after that day. On our way back to camp we managed to hit a few more large birds with the car so I started to protect it with Reiki and there were no more incidents after that. When we got back to camp, we made a huge campfire, cooked our meal, ate and then Deirdre sang a song and I gave everyone Reiki on their backs, and we hung out and talked til 10 then went to bed.

Day Three

Ok I was real cranky this AM. Could barely speak. But when I woke up I heard people up including Mick saying how they weren't sore this morning and how strange that was. So I smiled to myself since they never said anything to me about it. So we ate breaky packed up the tents and bags and went off to another fall for half a day of climbing and swimming before heading back to Darwin. We went to some falls to the south of the park and it was not a bad climb (are you kidding after yesterday!) and we swam in pristine pools above a lovely fall. Mick jumped into a pool from high on a rock ledge it is that deep. In another area the rock pool has to be exited after jumping in from the high walls by swimming under water thru an opening. A little too scary for me. Mick took me and another gal up into the stream away from the falls to a little thrown chair carved out of the rock. It was a little scary swimming over my head and I bruised my leg by jumping too close to a rock, but I was ok. So then we ate lunch and hung out more then we packed up to hike back to the bottom of the falls to explore and swim a little more. A fresh water crocodile had a lair nearby but Mick kept an eye on it and I swam out to the falls and back but that was scary since it is fresh water and I don't swim all that well. But like I said earlier I had more water experiences in Australia than in my whole life and when in Rome..." On the way back to Darwin we stopped at an area filled with Red tailed Black cockatoos. They kick up a hell of a racket screeching. Beautiful to see such magnificent animals in the wild, not caged up. Deirdre fell asleep on the way back. We stopped at a road side outback pub to get a drink or a snack. It was full of aboriginal art, old cattle saddles and various animals parts attached to the wall with rude signs interspersed throughout. Could be a rough place at other hours. So we went to fuel up the car and they all got out to smoke right near the gas pump I was like "hello, explosion, capiche?" We were so tired. We went back to the hostel with the substandard beds, tho it did have good showers and sacked out.

Darwin
Darwin is a port city in the very center northern Australia. It gets very wet and tropical in the summer. It is a navy port and not very large but up til WWII it was not exactly habitable area for white people. Only with the threat of invasion was this area suddenly very much in need of protection. The older Australians love Americans. It is a British colony in history but we learned that during the war Churchill realized he did not have the man power to defend Australia so he decided the Japanese could have about half the country as far south as the city of Brisbane, now known as the "Brisbane Line". Well the Australians didn't take too kindly to that idea and created Darwin and teamed up with the Americans to fight off the Japanese. And although they were outmanned they did manage to hold them off only a few hundred miles from the coast. So that's why today Australians emulate or borrow American culture more than British --TV, fashion, movies, etc. Or so it was explained to me. Darwin has a good nightlife tho D and I didn't really go out much. Darwin is said to have the best sunsets in all Australia. Finally it was time to start our bus adventure west to Perth along the coast.

Katherine
Katherine is a town south of Darwin whose claim to fame is this incredible gorge system just outside. To the south are the hot springs of Mataranka. We didn't stay long. I think you should give the gorges a day or two. We only had one-half a day. Deirdre was still sick and I was starting to feel ill myself. I went to the Katherine Hot springs-- which bubble up from the earth and are channeled down a small creek. Very recently they had had terrible floods that inundated the whole town. I met an aboriginal woman with many little dogs and we walked back to town along the bike path by the river. She told me the flood had everyone under water so badly they rebuilt some of the houses on stilts and the national guard had to come in and rescue people from rooftops. Her dog got in the path of some kids bicycle so he ran it over twice with his tires. I was appalled. The dog shrieked, got up and ran away. I wished the woman well. I could not believe that! This is the same town where that vet practices out of. He was on a PBS show last year and he flies all over the Northern Territory ministering to animals health. I was sorry I didn't get to meet him. The bus takes us up to the Gorge park HQ and there are various options from canoeing to hiking and we only had time to hike up to one viewpoint and then back before our next bus leg to The Kimberly Region of Western Australia. Deirdre nearly missed the bus since it was late out of Darwin (we later find out there is only one bus a day to Perth and it is nearly always late!) and she went to get kleenex for her nose.

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This page updated February 21, 2000.