Sunday 16 March 2008

Wetlands of Kakadu National Park





Stephen and I just returned from a 3-day tour of Kakadu and Litchfield National Park.

It was a really good way to explore these areas. Kakadu alone is the size of Wales so that makes for a huge area to explore. We got off to a bit of a rough start. The piercing sound of our Argentinian alarm clock woke us up just before 5am. We arrived at the tour office on time with all of our things. There was supposed to be a weight limit of 15kg, but our backpacks were well under the weight limit and we didn't want to pay the hostel fees to store our stuff. As a huge, full jeep safari vehicle rode up the driver informed us that and the Japanese girl waiting with us that he couldn't fit all of our luggage in the jeep. We were miffed because had we known there was a size limit we could have easily packed a few things in a small bag the night before. As it was the wet season, there was no guarantee our things would stay dry if we tied them on the top of the jeep. After our camera experience I didn't want to chance this. So, we repacked and left our luggage in the tour office. My brain does not usually engage early in the morning until I have been awake for at least an hour and have had a cup of coffee. Needless to say, I managed to forget shower gel and toothpaste. At least Stephen remembered these important articles. Unfortunately, I also forgot the torch (flashlight)! Stephen already managed to lose his so we were forced to by a large, overpriced torch with weak batteries at the first campsite. This purchase just about killed Stephen, but it was essential. The campsite was pitch black and we had no lights in our tents. I didn't want to accidentally step on a venomous snake on my way to the bathroom or sit on a redback spider in the toilet...


Anyway, after the rocky start things were fine. We assumed the last two seats in the jeep safari vehicle and we were off! I was seated next to Daniel, a friendly 19-year old from London who was still drunk from the night before and looked like he hadn't washed his long hair for a few days. At least he was sociable. Soon we were driving through the wetlands on our way to the crocodile jumping cruise along the Adelaide River. The wetlands are home to many species of waterbirds including the magpie goose, green pygamy goose, Burekin duck, heron, egret, cormornat, wedge-tailed eagle, whistling kite and black kite. We saw several of them out the windows of the jeep. There was one enormous waterbird that will actually challenge a crocodile for a kill. They have really hard beaks that can actually pierce a crocodile's skull and brain. If one of these birds approach a crocodile, the croc will actually retreat first.
When we arrived at the jumping croc site they had two pythons on display that they would allow the tourists to hold. I took the olive python, Ollie, much to the surprise of many of our fellow travelers. I had a science teacher in elementary school who always brought her own snakes into class so I don't mind holding them. Ollie was a really beautiful olive colour. We found out later Olive Pythons are local snakes that hunt the bats in the caves of the national parks.

1 comment:

Wanda said...

OK, I'm officially impressed. There are not a lot of things that scare me but snakes are terrifying to me. You are a lot more courageous than I am.