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 |
South Alligator River, Cooinda |
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 |
Cormorant |
Nankeen Night Heron |
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.
The sun was going down with the smoke influenced light changing colours minute by minute.
Yellow Water Sunset cruise |
Male estuarine crocodile, South Alligator River |
A Four metre long saltwater crocodile |
Male Estuarine Crocodile, South Alligator River |
Female estuarine crocodile, Kakadu National Park |
Female Saltwater Crocodile |
Lotus on Yellow Water, Kakadu |
Lotus |
At the height of the wet season lotus flowers bloom thickly. There were still some vibrant patches left for us to enjoy.
As the sun slowly descended, allowing the crocodiles to hide in the darkened water our spectacular cruise came to an end!
Sunset on South Alligator River, Kakadu |
Fabulous photos of this amazing area. We did it during the day but this sunset cruise must have been wonderful.
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