Youngs' travelling adventures: Kakadu to Atherton Tablelands

Wednesday the 22nd of June
Hi everyone, we are at the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland and have been out of service for a quite a while. Now that we have full service I will be able to catch up with the blog.

Kakadu

In Litchfield and Kakadu National Park there were a lot of bushfires. These fires are deliberately lit shortly after the wet season. It is called cool burning. The fires burn the grasses and not the trees. The fires help repair the country and to encourage biodiversity to recover.

The Aboriginals have been burning for tens of thousands of years and non Aboriginal people are now starting to realise the value of this age-old Aboriginal knowledge.

Some of the roads were still closed because they had the wettest season on record.

On the way into the park we stopped at Aurora Kakadu Resort to buy our park passes and have lunch. We continued on and stopped at Mamukala Bird Hide. It was a short walk from the car park along a raised boardwalk over the wetlands. When we reached the hide we could see lots of birdlife. Alanna was looking over the edge of the handrail when her hat fell in the water. None of us were going in to get it because we were in croc country.

Wetlands from Mamukala Bird Hide

Our next stop was Ubirr –famous for its Aboriginal rock art. Along the road to Ubirr we had to cross two flood ways. Todd enjoyed driving through the water. When we got to the car park the kids started to complain because it was hot and they didn’t want to walk. ( We made them anyway.) On our walk a ranger told us about some of the rock art paintings and how the Aboriginals lived among the rocks during the wet season until the 1960’s with one of the elders living there until 2002 when he passed away. We walked to the top of the rocks where we could see over the floodplain. I would have liked to sit there longer but the kids didn’t want to.

Aboriginal Rock Art

View from the top of the rocks at Ubirr
over the floodplains

One of the many fires buring on the
side the road.

river crossing on the way to Ubirr.
( Looks worse than what it was.)

We spent the night at Jabiru ( Kakadu Lodge) which had a very nice campground. The kids went swimming in the pool and then we had dinner at the Bistro in the caravan park for my birthday.
Jabiru is the main town in Kakadu.

The next day we drove to Cooinda (In Kakadu)and stayed the night. In the morning we went on The Yellow Waters Cruise. It was very interesting. We saw brumbies, crocodiles, golden tree snakes and plenty of birds and ducks. After our cruise we drove to Mataranka.