Saturday, July 26, 2014

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.




The sun was going down with the smoke influenced light changing  colours minute by minute.
Yellow Water Sunset cruise
A lone male estuarine croc patrolled his territory. Top of the food chain, he guarded his many smaller females, daring us to come closer.
Male estuarine crocodile, South Alligator River
Come any closer and I'll let you know who is in control here was the message we received. We backed off!
A Four metre long saltwater crocodile
Male Estuarine Crocodile, South Alligator River
One of his harem wasn't that keen to see us either!
Female estuarine crocodile, Kakadu National Park

Female Saltwater Crocodile
This lady became decidedly cranky and suddenly turned, snarling, her awesome jaw letting us know to back right off!
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
What a great start to our Kakadu experience!

1 comment:

  1. Fabulous photos of this amazing area. We did it during the day but this sunset cruise must have been wonderful.

    ReplyDelete