Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks

Kakadu is a huge national park in the far north of Australia. It is about the size of Israel, but since it has only two main roads passing through, it is mostly inaccessible to the visitors, which gives a real feeling of wilderness.
We picked up Aviv in Katherine and drove north to Kakadu. We drove into the park through the southern road on our way to Ubirr.
There are three rivers that cross the park: The West Alligator, South Alligator and East Alligator rivers. However, if you want to see an alligator, go to Bolivia. In Kakadu National Park you can only find salt and fresh water crocodiles. The salt ones are dangerous and large and they can be sometimes seen in the rivers as well. On our way we stopped few times and did few short hikes such as the one in Yellow Water, that goes near the South Alligator river, and on a platform from which you might see crocs, but we saw only their noses sticking out of the water from a distance.

We did see lots of water birds, in Jim Jim billabong (an all year round swamp in the tropics) and especially on the second day when we visited Mamukala, where there is a special construction that hides the people, allowing the birds to feel comfortable. We saw lots of geese which are special guests in Kakadu that come every year before the beginning of the wet season.

We arrived in Ubirr at the afternoon. Ubirr is one of the most famous places to see Aboriginal rock paintings. Some of the paintings are ancient (as old as 20,000 years), but some can be only 40 years old, and it seems that the question of their age is completely irrelevant to the park guides. The subject of the paintings can vary between ancient myths, educational stories for children or just a list of food that the local tribe used to eat.
Ubirr is at its best during sunset. We joined the free ranger talk on the top of the plateau above the wall paintings. The rangers talked about the 6 seasons of the local tribes that are all connected to the wet and the dry season and the changes in the available food between them. Lilya tried to find out whether the Aboriginals has an equivalent to PachaMama (Mother Land), but unfortunately, they didn't have anything close to that there.
The sunset was indeed amazing. From the top of the plateau we could see all the floodplains bellow covered with green grass, set with small water pools. When the sun came down, the whole plane was painted in red, which was a great contrast to the grey storm clouds at the east.

The thick clouds provided the light show for the night. We got to the campsite after darkness and as soon as we built the tents we saw a spectacular lightning storm far away. Since we were sure that the storm is heading our way, we put the tent cover that night, which made sleeping very difficult, since it was also a very hot and moist night. Luckily enough, the storm didn't come and on the next morning we went hiking in Nourlangie. This is a 12km day hike that starts with a steep climb and goes trough some nice lookouts, but nothing really special. After we finished we visited Mamukala, saw the birds from the hiding place and drove out of the park.

We slept in Batchelor, near the entrance to the Litchfield National Park.
The "Lonely Planet" quotes a local saying: "Litchfield-do, Kaka-don't-do". We didn't get very excited from Kakadoo, but it was beautiful enough, definitely not a "don't-do"! Only when we got to Litchfield we understood the real origin of this phrase. In Litchfield, every attraction is found next to the parking zone, and the Ausies, being quite a laid-back (not to say lazy) lot, can come with their car and make the final 100 meters from it to the pool with their flip-flops on.
There are quite a few of these stopping places in Litchfield. The first one is called "Magnetic Termite mounds". This is indeed a fascinating phenomenon. The area is full with termite mounds, that look like an arrow. The amazing thing is that all the arrows point at the same direction, as if the termites have an internal compass (hence the name "Magnetic Termite"). As far as we understand, there no satisfying explanation for that.

We visited two large crystal clear pools, full of people and a really nice waterfall. The pools of Litchfield are a really great escape from the big red oven outside. However, we spent only half a day in the park before driving to Darwin.

They say that the wet season is coming early this year to North Australia. If it is so, we probably got the grand opening on our way from Litchfield. When we started driving the sun was shining above us, but the horizon, as far as we could see, was quite greyish. As we approached the clouds became darker and darker until it felt as if it was very late afternoon (it was midday). And then we met a wall of rain, and entered right in to it. In less than a minute we were in amazingly forceful tropical storm. The water was pouring from the sky as if someone was emptying a pool on our car. The wind became very strong and large brunches started to fall on the road. We couldn't see anything, not even the front of our car. We proceeded very very slowly, until after a few minutes the storm passed us, and each of us continued in his own direction. That was definitely the strongest rain we have ever witnessed. Apparently, this storm was wondering around for few days, the same one we saw from a distance the night before.    

Picasa Gallery Links: Kakadu, Litchfield

Tip 1: Litchield-do and Kaka-do. If you are near Darwin, both parks should be on your visit list.
Tip 2: Ubirr is at its best on sunset. Plan your trip so you'll be there about an hour and a half before.