Heading up the Stuart Highway the turn off to Kakadu is at a town called Pine Creek. Needing to fill up on petrol, we stopped for a quick drive around the town and found a cool little National Trust railway museum with a couple of old engines that the kids could explore. They loved climbing all over them and playing with all the controls and levers. It was a great place for a quick game of hide and seek too. The museum was run by a lovely old couple keen to look after us but after a quick chat we hopped in the car to continue on our way. As we were heading off we almost forgot that this was where the turn off to Kakadu was and started heading towards Darwin! Luckily, Kat was on the case and after a quick U turn, we were on our way to Kakadu. We didn’t really have a plan for Kakadu. We had heard that it had been a really big and late wet season this year with a few campgrounds, walks and other tourist attractions still closed, so we figured we would just work things out once we arrived. After entering the park, we drove for about 45 minutes before arriving at Maguk campground where we would spend the night. As with all campgrounds we approached, there was that nervous moment before we found the site. Would it fit the camper, would it be flat enough (our soft floor camper was much happier when set up on relatively flat ground) and would it have a nice vibe. As we drove around the loop road into this one, we weren’t convinced. There was no one else there (sometimes a good thing but sometimes not), and most sites looked way too small for the camper. We were almost all the way around the loop when we found a huge site with a picnic table and fire pit, close to the toilets which was perfect. Woohoo! We set up and had some lunch in an attempt to prevent the otherwise inevitable morphing of happy campers into grumpy campers. Unfortunately this time food didn’t seem to improve the mood so we decided that a walk could be just what we needed. We packed up and headed down the road to the start of a short walk to Maguk Waterhole and Falls. As we had well and truly entered croc country at this point, we weren’t sure if we would be able to swim in it but we took our gear just in case. The walk was lovely, taking us along a number of creeks lined with trees and palms. The views along the deeper creeks were great, but we couldn’t help but imagine there were a few pairs of eyes watching us the whole time. Parts of the track were still submerged, but after a bit of rock hopping up one of the creeks we made it to the waterhole. There were a few people swimming there which was good enough for us so we got changed and jumped in for a quick swim to cool off. With moods improved we headed back to camp, got the fire going and enjoyed dinner and some toasted marshmallows before bed.
The next day we headed to Gunlom Falls which we were told was a must see. From the carpark we took a short track first to see the view from the bottom of the falls. Although there was not a massive flow over the rocks above, the black algae covering the rock face suggested that during the wet it must be an amazing sight to see. We spent a few minutes watching a beautiful white egret flying low over the water in search of fish. We then doubled back and headed along the track that took us to the top of the falls where the real action was. It was a very steep climb up a ‘path’ that was more of a scramble up rocks than anything else, but the path was clear enough to make it up. At the top, not only were we rewarded with a great view over the distant ranges, but there were three pools we could swim in, fed by another waterfall above the pools. It was a stunning setting, the lowest pool forming an infinity pool, with the water just flowing over the edge and down the falls we had seen from below. We played and swam there for an hour or so, exploring the three pools and enjoying the natural shower under the falls, before walking a little further up above the second waterfall to see the view from above and have a few snacks before heading back down to the car park. We drove back to camp and enjoyed a leisurely lunch time pack up as we were moving to another campground for the next few nights. One thing we didn’t realised about Kakadu until we got here was just how massive it is. Driving between some of the sights can be 100km or more, so staying in one place for the whole time didn’t really make sense, especially since it was down the southern end of the park, with a lot of the other things we wanted to see being up in the north.
On the way to the next campground, we drove past some massive termite mounds. Having seen some relatively big ones further south, we were amazed at the size of these. One that we stopped at to take a closer look at was at least 5 metres tall, easily 2.5 times as tall as Kat or I. We got to the new campground and set up in a large spot with a fireplace and table. There were a few other people around but it was definitely still early enough in the season that things weren’t too full which was really nice. We imagined that at the height of peak season it would be so overrun that it would take away from the beauty of the place a bit. The kids showed their growing independence and boy scout skills, and collected wood, set the fire and lit it with absolutely zero adult input or supervision. Although we wouldn’t have let them do that earlier in the trip, their growing skills and daily exposure to such things, combined with our growing ability to loosen our overly controlling grip on them meant that this was now seen as a great opportunity to delegate another chore to the kids. They toasted marshmallows while Kat got dinner sorted. We often did ‘reverse dinner’ as we called it so that we could get the kids to bed after dinner without the long drawn out process of marshmallow toasting. Although it is nice to all sit around the fire after dinner, as the kids are waking up with the sun every morning, if they don’t get to bed early they became really tired (and grumpy).
We were about half way through dinner when we suffered our first major attack of the trip. There was clearly a signal given by the chief mozzie that there was a family camping just past the swampy area that was their base, and the entire population simultaneously swooped on us. There were so many that there was a faint buzz the entire time, and they were literally crashing into us trying to find somewhere to land for their dinner. We scoffed the rest of our dinner in record time, and with pyjamas and toothbrushes flying everywhere, the kids were ready for bed faster than they had been on the entire trip so far. Once they were safely tucked up in bed behind fly screens, we braved the washing up while the attack continued, before also retreating to the safety of the tent and then bed.
After the mozzie dramas of the night before, the next morning I set up the four walls of the annex, which provided us an outdoor space relatively free of bugs so we could eat in comfort over the next couple of days. We then set off to see some of the better examples of aboriginal art that the park had to offer. They were really impressive and detailed, with many different examples of daily life and ceremony. To think that some of them have been there for thousands of years really is awe inspiring. The walk took us past a few different art sites, as well as up to a lookout below a long rocky escarpment containing some incredible striped rock formations resembling multicoloured paint left to run down the side of the cliff face. We then drove up to Cahill’s crossing, a permanent water crossing that leads to Ahrnem Land. It is a notorious place where less than prepared cars sometime fail the crossing. There was one car that was upside down in the river with only its tyres above the water, apparently from a failed crossing a few months earlier during the peak of the wet. It is also a good place to see crocs, but in spite of having lunch by the river, we didn’t see any while we were there. Back at camp that afternoon, we had a super early dinner, with everyone ready for bed before the mozzies had a chance to launch their nightly attack.
On our last day we went to the Anbangbang Billabong with the intention of walking around it, but as with many things in Kakadu, most of the walk was closed due to recent sightings of crocs. It was still great to walk along the part of the shoreline that was open as the water was scattered with flowers, lily pads loads of birds in and around the water. We kept waiting for one of the hidden crocs to leap out of the water and munch on a family of ducks, but either there were no crocs or they just aren’t that into birds. Either way, we drove around to the other side where there was a lookout walk up a massive rock face. The kids had a lot of fun exploring the rock face and the interesting rock shapes that thousands of years of weathering had created, including one that looked like a dragon’s head. There was a really cool sunken hole in the rock that they climbed down into, which if full of water would have made a great pool. This would have been much appreciated given we were all sweltering in the midday sun with little shade. There were beautiful views over Kakadu and it was definitely the best lookout we had been to so far. Plumes of smoke filled the air as ‘controlled’ burns were being done throughout the park. As we drove around, we would sometimes pass grass fires literally by the side of the road, which we decided didn’t look overly controlled. That afternoon we hung out at camp and tested out our gas hot water shower and ‘ensuite’ tent. It worked really well but was a bit water hungry so we gave the kids quick showers and decided we could just smell until we got to Darwin. The next morning we packed up and got away in record time, driving off around 8:30am, super excited to get to Darwin as Kat’s parents were flying up that day to meet us and spend a few days together. We stopped briefly at the visitors centre on the way out where the kids were able to feed the resident long necked turtles who they named Squirtle and Terry.
Wide open spaces 