Kakadu

Wetland lily

Wetlands

Jabiru is a Portuguese word

Sea eagle

Kakadu croc

Sunrise and magpie geese

Easter

I am scratching away at insect bites – mosquito, sandfly and midge bites – they get worse by the hour . AAAhhhh!. Bastards. That’s what you get when you go to camping at the end of the Wet season in Kakadu National Park.

The tent we stayed in was massive. It only took about 15 minutes to erect but another half-an-hour to drive in the tent pegs. The ground was not as bad as the bedrock I’ve tried to pitch a tent on at Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains, but pretty close. I have blisters on my hands from the hammering. Despite the roominess of our accommodation, or maybe because of it , we weren’t safe from insects. On Sunday night scouts snuck in and feasted on me. I had a restless night anyway – the sweat dripped down my back while I lay on my mat on the floor – ‘Come here sweet breeze, come here!’. No relief from rain, dingos howled in the camp – I was really scared! One of the dogs ran really close to my part of the tent – I’m panicking thinking there’s only a bit of mosquito net between me and that wild beast. They were out hunting and their howls are spine chilling, and oddly miserable. (It suddenly flashed across my mind that for sure a dingo took that baby!) The moon was full, as it always is at Easter, but there was too much of it shining through the tent windows, plus the lights in the campground – how could anyone sleep – but I still enjoyed it. I’m some twisted masochist I guess. Can you believe there were wild ponies wandering around the camp ground too? We saw their dung all over the place, right next to our tent as well. Who knows what’s out there! We had so many visitors – even kangaroos.

Helen forgot the camp stove so we cooked our meals, toasted our bread and boiled water for tea and coffee on the communal burners. A great way to meet people. You were guaranteed of having a conversation while you stood and stirred. The most interesting person was a little boy from NSW with a tiny lizard in his hand. He was travelling with his grandmother around Australia. He did his school work on the way – although Nana forgot on Wednesday, but he didn’t remind her. And talk about community – one day we played cricket with Helen’s son behind the tents – well kids came from everywhere. Can you believe I was telling a couple of the girls how to play cricket? ‘Watch the ball onto the bat, stand side on…’ Yes, life is stranger than fiction.

The boat ride on the Yellow Waters River was a highlight – saw two crocs – one chasing after the other – was really glad our boat was big. We saw one those little silver tinnies out there with 6 guys in it, all fishing for barramundi – one standing up on the bow wobbling and reeling in a big fella in on his line -sure to tip over – croc bait I reckon. Those boats are only meant to take about 3 people.

And so many birds in Kakadu! Wow – herons, jabirus, magpie geese, sea eagles, kites, rainbow bee eaters – and they’re only the birds I can remember the names of.

One of the best places for birds was a place we dropped into on the way back. Fogg Dam, just out of Darwin. Masses of birds -and there was a warning not to walk on the dam wall (which was also the roadway) as a crocodile has been seen walking across from one side to the other. AAhh. I was a bit nervous when I got out and took photos on that strip of road. I didn’t want to be the next croc statistic, and there’ve been a few over the last months. The tour guide reminded us that there are about 70,000 crocs in the territory.

Now I’m going to look for some more cream to put on those insect bites – a week later and I still look like I’ve got the plague. I’ve got red welts all over me.