The Top End

One last note about Darwin.  It has the feel of a frontier town, and its boom-bust history is evident.  It's in boom-time now - construction cranes hulk over its expanding developments, driven by gas and gold extraction.  It is the northern outpost for the military - Australian and U.S. troops and navy were going to be the bulwark against a Japanese invastion near the end of World War II; though the war ended before that could happen, the Japanese did severly bomb Darwin.  The bunkers of the era are still evident in the park near where we stayed, a bit north of downtown.

Ok, so our tour of Kakadu and Litchfield national parks.  The parks are similar in many ways, kilometers of tropical forest etched by rivers and waterfalls and divided by "rock country," jutting piles of sedementary rock (from when this land was under sea) and a 500-kilometer long escarpment.  A big difference, however, is that local Aboriginal people have land rights to Kakadu and co-manage the park with the national government. Land claims for Litchfield remain in the courts after more than a decade.

Bill and Robin

Terry and Helene

We six Seattleites - friends Helene and Terry and Robin and Bill - were the elders of our group of 15, comprising one Italian couple, three single young German women, and Irish couple, and a mixed couple from Sydney - he an Aussie, she a Brit (they provided a bit of romantic drama when Dave proposed to Nat on the rocks above Jim Jim Falls, see below.  We had champagne and toasts for them that night).

Like our Red Center tour, this was a bit of a whirlwind, but our guide, Claude, was less the drill sergeant than Norell was down south.  And we had a second guid acting as camp cook - Flick, a bit of an acronym, given her multi-colored hairdo!  And whereas Norell seemed to have planned "class sessions" to explain what we were seeing and experiencing, Claude emitted information in ad hoc rambles that, if you weren't standing or walking with him at the time, you missed.

Also different than our earlier tour, for this one our camps were basically in large RV parks; I suppose that was the "upgraded" level of comfort we selected.  The fixe tent camps were comfortable enough - large tents even with queen beds and within walking distance of toilet and shower.  Plus, both sites had bars, so cold beer met us at the end of each day, not bad!

But, as for a wilderness camping experience, this tour was not.

We were given a short introduction to local Aboriginal culture - the language groups in the area include the Wuningangk, Limilngan, Woolna, and others - by Graham, the elder of his community, in his mid-fourties.  He told us about bush medicines - anti-bacterial plants, ones to use as a plaster over a wound, teas of various sorts - showed us how to play the digereedoo (well, at least we tried), talked with pride of his culture and that his community had been able to retain its traditional ways.

Graham's daughter discussed "women's things," basket weaving and such, but her most intriguing words were about how she lived in two worlds, Aboriginal and non, and she clearly saw that as a benefit to her and her family.  Her pride in her work and education was clear.

Among our tour adventures was a hike to 600-foot high Jim Jim Falls and a fantastic swim in the cool pool it cascaded into:

Two "gallery walks" of incredible Aboriginal rock paintings, some of which dated back a few thousand years.  The paintings depicted wallabies, crocodiles, barramundi (a fish of both fresh and saltwater varieties), women (an example to the right), and even an English sailing ship the must have come up river in the late 1800s.

Some fine sunsets, including this one overlooking vast floodplain the reminded us of the Serengeti in Tanzania:


We also saw first hand the practice of controlled burning, which Aboriginal people have been doing for thousands of years.  The burning helps to revive old flora and replenish animal populations, both of which the local people rely on for sustenance ("bush tucker").  Park staff set these fires in the evening when it was cool and winds had died down, but we certainly saw the evidence of the burns the next day:


We saw some humongous termite mounds.

And on a late afternoon boat ride on a billabong, we spotted some very interesting birds, including adult and juvenile Nankeen Night-Herons and a Jibaru (Black-necked stork) silhouetted in its nest:

Of course, our guide was also keen on us seeing a crocodile in the wild, and he took many detours to find one.  During the first two days, all that we saw were the many warning signs:

But on our last day, we spotted two, including this "small one" (maybe 8 feet tail to toe).  Note the feather sticking out of its mouth, remnants of dinner, no doubt.

With that sighting, our tour was complete.