FAMILY and TRAVELS 2014: Northern Territory

Our car is an X-Trail, top of the line model, late 2010. It has a 16" spacesaver spare (joke as the space fits a full-sized tyre), rated for 80kph; the 'real' tyres are 18" low profile and hard to get. David was aware of problems and tried to buy secondhand wheels in Brisbane - no luck. Also the spare is mounted under the boot floor, so when we blew a tyre on the Savannah Way just 20k from Borroloola on a Saturday, we had to remove everything from the boot, goods, floor, drawers.

The news was worse when we got to B - not repairable as a stone had cut the sidewall. Phone calls to Katherine thankfully led to Bridgestone having suitable tyres in stock on Monday. So we spent an extra day in Borroloola, as we wanted to revisit Caranbirini on the way to Katherine. Photos below show why Caranbirini is such a special place.

Green pygmy-geese

Click on the photo above to see what David found. We think this little lizard is Diporiphora albilabris sobria.

Drove another 4.5 hours and spent the night at Hiway Inn near the famous Daly Waters hotel, where we stayed in 2008. We were in the mood for a quiet night, not on offer there. Had a view over paddocks of red-winged parrots, cockatiels, galahs, rainbow lorikeets, apostle birds, grey kangaroos and more. Dined at the Inn and had a peaceful night.

Spent the next day in Katherine shopping and getting 2 new tyres fitted. David now has a spare tyre (no wheel) as well as our 80kph 'dummy' spare.

In Darwin we stayed at Big 4 Howard Springs for 4 days on a big grassy private site where we were visited by a brushtail possum and a nonchalant orange-footed scrubfowl.

Howard Springs and Berry Springs are family-friendly places in tropical forest surrounds.

At Territory Wildlife Park, an excellent bird of prey show included a black-breasted kite using a stone to break open a dummy emu egg with meat inside. Star of the show was the osprey, which plunged into water vertically to get a fish which it then tore apart and ate just above the heads of several people. Whistling and black kites, not part of the show, tried to get into the act and the osprey showed them who was boss. In the aquarium sawfish and freshwater whipray were of more interest than the immobile fresh and saltwater crocodiles.

A 3m saltie and beautiful Little Kingfisher were notable features at Fogg Dam.

Darwin Museum & Art Gallery was well worth a visit. They have a very impressive collection of Aboriginal art. We were amazed at the tiny marine creatures in a photographic exhibition.

We missed out on the champagne sunset cruise which we enjoyed in 2008. However, the much cheaper Streeter Sunset Cruise BYO was a good way to spend a lazy afternoon.

I found bird-watching sites on the web so we explored a few places including Knuckey Lagoons, where we saw this darter and 17 other species including an Australian pratincole.

Drove 3 hours from Darwin to Kakadu Lodge, Jabiru. Found a shady spot (site 1) next to the pool and near amenities. There we were visited by a channel-billed cuckoo, blue-faced and white-gaped honeyeaters.


Short-eared rock wallaby at Ubirr

The next day was crammed with action - Ubirr in the morning, Arnhem Land trip up the river in the afternoon.

Our Ubirr guide told us stories behind each painting featuring human figures and pointed out the fact that the main gallery is to a large extent a menu, showing food available.

Thylacine, Main Gallery

Beheaded mullet

Lookout Ubirr

David at Ubirr

Our afternoon trip up East Alligator River to Arnhem Land featured more tourists, more crocs and higher water levels than in 2008. Guide was not as interesting as in 2008 and higher water meant we couldn’t see stingrays on sandy bottom.

Looking downriver from Arnhem Land

Spear throwing demonstration

A relatively late start next morning as David was not well. We missed the lookout talk at Nourlangie and regretted it after hearing Annie (a white woman) give the next 2 talks. She is an excellent speaker, so knowledgeable and inspiring.

At Anbangbang Gallery she spoke about law, land and family – the intricacies of skin relationships and the implications. Son-in-laws must avoid mother-in-laws. Your uncles are your mother’s brothers; your aunts are your father’s sisters.

Paintings obvious in the Gallery were done in 1962-65 when elders from outside Kakadu who knew about ceremony here decided to preserve the heritage. By the time Kakadu became a national park in 1979, buffalo had already rubbed off older paintings, ridding themselves of spinifex.

Leichhardt was here in 1845 and made welcome by the Aborigines, some of whom could speak English. Archaeologists in recent years dug 1.5m down at Anbangbang Shelter under the watchful eyes of elders, who were helpful in explaining the uses of artefacts found. Annie showed us a grinding stone and a ‘horses hoof’ core tool (used to make spear heads) which were at least 20,000 years old and would have been left here for others to use as they are too heavy to tote. Spear heads of quartz and ironstone were also found. Small velvety ‘stems’ with burnt heads were recognized by the elders as banksias ‘matches’, carried by women.

David felt very ill during this talk. We decided to leave, foregoing the steep climb to the lookout.

Instead, we drove to nearby Anbangbang Billabong, shared a banana and did the 2.8km flat, mostly shady walk around the billabong. I saw 18 birds in an hour, including a big flock of plumed whistling duck, magpie geese, a pair of black-fronted dotterels, corellas, white and black cockatoos, Pacific heron and a female rufous whistler.

Black-fronted dotterel

Little corellas

Plumed whistling ducks

David drove 50km on to Mardugal near Cooinda to check out campsite (good camp) but I drove back to Jabiru as he felt too sick and drowsy. We had a short swim after a late lunch, then David spent ages trying to find why our 12V system does not seem to be charging.

After dinner we listened to the ranger talk, Buffalo Days, and had the chance to taste Buffalo Carpaccio. Interesting talk on early days. In 1820 ? the British set up an army camp at Port Essington, bringing in buffalo, pigs, deer and cattle from Indonesia. All animals were left behind when the place was abandoned and they survived. Game hunters flew into Kakadu before roads were built. Later, from 1900 to WW2, buffalo were shot for leather used in machinery belts, etc. Aboriginal women skinned and salted the hides. These days, buffalo are a menace and 300,000 were culled over some years after Kakadu was declared a NP. They still have to kill several thousand a year.

Went to Mamukala wetlands, back on the road to Darwin, seeing 20 bird species from a sumptuous bird hide and along the 3 km walking track. Four finch species –masked, crimson, long-tailed and double barred - were feeding together on a burnt piece of ground in pandanus territory.


Masked finch

Female crimson finch

Jacana, perhaps male, and chick

At Jabiru in the evening Annie gave a talk on the work done by rangers and local people to keep tourists safe (move crocs), natural environment healthy (remove pest species- big mimosa program), infrastructure intact (repairs after wet season; remove walkways before wet season; clear boat ramps of mud). Well presented and most informative.

Investigated 2 other billabong camps before arriving at Mardugal, where we rested until driving to Coinda for our 3:30 Yellow Waters cruise.


Overnight camp at Mardugal

The sunset cruise started at 4:30 when birds are particularly active.

This Pacific heron has a defiant pose, having dined on the back of a crocodile, which thrashed around to show his annoyance.

Great egret

Jabiru on flood plain

One of the few crocs sighted

Whistling kite

Wandering whistling ducks

Lotus flower

6:37pm

7:00pm

7:05pm

David and his Canon camera, 50 zoom, did well to capture these images, especially of the jabirus, each at around 500m and the nest in fading light.

Next morning I was delighted to see a Little Shrike-thrush and 2 m and 2 f Shining Flycatchers on the Mardugal Billabong walk, though the water was far too deep for waders. Easy drive to Katherine where we stayed at Low Level Caravan Park and booked the 9am 3 Gorge 4 hour cruise. Our guide was not local and had only been there 2 months. However, he was a competent boat handler and we were lucky that just 8 people were on this cruise (vs booked out on all other cruises).

First gorge

Second gorge

Red Lily Pond

Interesting info he imparted:

Campbell was a pioneer who never knew about the gorge but named Edith Falls and Flora River after his daughters.

Freshwater crocodiles eat what they can swallow whole, so humans are safe. Used to be 5000 but reduced to 1000 because of cane toads.

Dunlop Swamp, 50m deep, is the reason for a very green section, with native lasiandras, silver-leafed paperbarks, supplejacks, ferns.

Deepest point in all the 13 gorges is in the second gorge, 40-50m deep.

Rocks are 2 billion year old layers of sandstone and conglomerates – too old for fossils.

There are more than 380 rock art sites in Nitmiluk. Rock art in the second gorge is 8000-10,000 yrs old. It was hard to get interesting photos because of position or faintness of pigment.

Elsey National Park near Mataranka is a lovely place but the weather was very hot while we were there for 3 days. We revisited several places which were great in 2008, did the Botanic Walk at 9am and had a swim at 4 Mile.

shady Botanic Walk

At least he didn't have the car keys in his pocket, just a hanky!

After lunch back at camp, we drove to nearby Bitter Springs for refreshing if rather warm swim. The water runs so fast that some people (not us) used aids and everyone walks back to the start.

Bitter Springs

We put our kayak in at 12 Mile and turned back after a while as there was nothing special to see and it was so hot. I alighted at the swimming pontoons and walked back to the car while David enjoyed a short solitary paddle.

Stevie's Hole, a favourite for fisherfolk

Returned to the Botanic Walk the next day and took the path to Stevie’s Hole. Walked 5.2km from 9am in mostly shady conditions. Very pretty, through paperbark swamps and bauhinia woodland. Stevie’s Hole had a sandy bottom but was strangely murky, odd as other water places were exceptionally clear. Home for lunch – hot!


Roper River, Elsey NP - too shallow here for a swim with freshwater crocs

Now heading for WA, stopping for food at Katherine supermarket. Frustrating – 30 minute queues for checkout; several items not available because of a train derailment 3 days ago. Saw beer being transferred from one road train to another at Mataranka, probably for the same reason.

Our last night in NT was spent at Keep River National Park, a mini version of the Bungles. Checked out the birds at Cockatoo Lagoon, mostly magpie geese. Walked the 8km loop in 2 ½ hours, seeing view from lookout and art site before sunset.