Day 52 – Cooinda to Darwin

I might need to change the way I label these posts. It’s not like we woke up this morning knowing we would end up in Darwin. Most of the time we don’t really know where the day will end.

Anyway, this morning we drive a kilometre or two, up to Yellow river, this is where a lot of the boat trips leave from. We’re not doing a boat trip, but thought it would be nice to have a look. The wetland there are really nice, and we start down an elevated walkway above the wetlands. After a few 100 metres we realise the path goes on for ages and we work out it goes back to the place we were staying. Had we know that we would have taken the walk earlier this morning from the van park. I’ve got to say the one think I don’t like about Kakadu is the rubbish information. To cover their butts they tell you that you can’t swim anywhere, but they show you photos of people swimming. They tell you a walk is hard, but it about a dozen steps up a hill. They tell you a turn off is in 300mts, but it arrives in 100mts. Someone seriously needs to look at their documentation.

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We elect to do the Burrungkuy walk, this is a walk that has a lot of rock art. It could be 1k, it could be 3, it might be easy it might be hard, we can’t tell. We have two official maps. They have different distances on them and spell the names of the place differently. It’s hot. I’ve given up.

I’ve got to say, looking at these rock art images, particularly the lighting man, it’s really like “wow”. We’ve all probably seen the image, but to be standing there in front of it is one huge reality check. I’d image it might be a similar feeling to standing in front of the Mona Lisa, but there are no crowds, we’ve got the place to ourselves (albeit briefly). As it turns out, while it is hot, the walk is pretty easy and to see so much iconic rock art is such a small area, certainly made the trip here worthwhile.

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We arrive in Jabiru around lunch time…..as it turns out on a Saturday… You could have shot the proverbial gun up Main Street. The only thing open was the servo and the supermarket.

A quick run out to the Ranger Mine that is now being decommissioned. I expected it to be larger, maybe that’s just is reputation (or you can only see a bit of it from the road).

We talk about staying the night in Jabiru or Kakadu (town). We’ve been on the move for a week now and some days have had a lot of driving. It takes its toll on everyone. So we decide to push onto Darwin and stay there, it will be a later arrival, but then we can stay for 4 maybe 5 nights before the new fridge is installed and we can be on our away.

Ever since Mt Isa we’ve seen a lot of road trains, in most case they have been fine, I took this shot as it kind of gives you the feeling of what it is like when you pass one.

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