Life's too short to stuff a mushroom. So . . . .: Sunset Cruise on South Alligator River, Kakadu National Park

The number one focus of this trip was to explore Kakadu National Park and, having now travelled almost four thousand kilometers, our anticipation heightened! After refuelling at Pine Creek we entered the National Park via the Kakadu Highway.

This was a very different National Park to those I had visited in other States and countries. Here the vegetation alongside the road was bare and blackened with fires still burning unattended in many places. Burned black tree trunks with green heads standing on the bare sooty earth made a striking picture. The smell of bush smoke waved past our senses. Even though this was only the beginning of the dry season, the grasses had a dry yellow hue giving a scorched appearance. I later learned that it is the practice to burn off the park in a mosaic pattern every three years. This minimises major spontaneous fires and also allows those plants that require fire for regeneration to thrive. We planned to try bush style camping instead of the commercial caravan parks so we were pleased to find that our chosen camp site was well away from any fires.

Mardugal Camp, Kakadu

Our first real camp proved to be the highlight camp of the whole trip! Mardugal is a non commercial camp managed by the National Park Board and had bush luxuries such as showers with hot water - thanks to the solar system. Trees provided shade and there were grassy areas where one could pick a spot and set up camp untroubled by close proximity to neighbouring campers. We loved the environment, meeting other travellers and also the Ranger's evening talks and walks in this woodland area.

South Alligator River, Cooinda

By early afternoon we had set up our camp, had lunch, chatted to a few other campers so we decided to take a drive to Cooinda to obtain our National Park passes. That done, we went for a drive to get a feel for the Park so that we could plan for our upcoming activities.

Kakadu, and also the rest of the Northern Territory, proved to be full of surprises! One minute we were driving down flat dry sided roads when, suddenly, we found ourselves confronted by an amazing sight of water - either a river, billabong of a waterfall! We were soon out of the van and taking the boardwalk from the Yellow River cruise boat ramp. How still and quiet it was! And how beautiful! We knew that we couldn't wait another day to take a cruise through this amazing place! Back we went to book our sunset cruise which would depart in little over an hour.

South Alligator River, Kakadu National Park

Sunset Cruise, Yellow Water

My photos do not do justice to the incredible number of different birds that are currently gathering here as the monsoonal waters recede.

Cormorant

Nankeen Night Heron

There were many egrets, lazily named small, medium or big.

Pied Cormorant

The calls of Whistling Ducks that have begun flying in as the water elsewhere in the Territory dries up accompanied us as we slowly floated downstream. In a few weeks their numbers will be in the tens of thousands.