Becky Wilde’s – Stumbling Across Australia –

Northern Territory – Wild Kakadu Experience

Hi Guys,

I’m glad you can join us in our adventure. If you read last week’s instalment, you would know that we are leaving Darwin. With a lot of expectation and excitement leading up to finally reaching a destination high on our travel itinerary, Darwin unfortunately left us a little flat.

Truth be told, it wasn’t Darwin, but our experiences there that just made it a little difficult. Feeling a little bit sad to be leaving on a sour note, but we will just have to come back and do it again. Next time we hope for some better experiences. I am really not a city person, so getting excited about a city isn’t me.

Now it’s time to go and I can’t wait to move on to our next adventure.

Kakadu National Park.

We still haven’t resolved our fuel/car issues prior to leaving Darwin. With hope that it would resolve itself with fresh fuel and a bit of luck… It was not to be. Driving South to the turn off to Kakadu, the car began to splutter and lost power. This is the first time it has done so with the caravan attached. Not good.

We pulled over in the Humpty Doo Pub for a non-alcoholic drink to let the car cool off and have a rethink about our plans. We had planned to not make the day too long and do a stopover in the Mary River National Park. It was around halfway to the epicentre of Kakadu, Jabiru. Nevertheless, we first must resolve our car troubles.

Leaving the Humpty Doo pub, the car wasn’t any better. Being a Saturday afternoon, there weren’t any options to get it checked by another mechanic as they were all closed. Really at a loss now. Hubby then had an epiphany. Had the fuel filter been changed when serviced? If not, could that be the cause of the issue?

Only one way to find out. Thankfully, my man he had the presence of mind to stock all filters for the car in a box in the back. Going remote, he wasn’t leaving it to chance that everything was going to be available if the shit hit the fan.

Again, we returned to Humpty Doo, this time to find a spot where we could park up and do some work to the car. It turned out we stopped beside the Fire and Police Station, on a vacant lot. Hubby worked on the car, removing the filter while I ever so helpfully sat under the awning of the car, and watched. The reality is, what was I going to do to help? I was struggling with the heat and obviously the car air conditioner couldn’t be on.

A couple of fire fighters came out to check something, upon seeing us, came over and asked if there was anything they could do to help. Such nice guys. Not long after that, they were called out to assist in a grass fire nearby.

Hubby changed the filter and sure enough there was traces of muck clogging it. We don’t know if it was replaced when serviced, removed and returned, or not checked at all. Luckily, it didn’t matter. This $25 filter gave us a week of heartache and stress. We returned to an outer suburb of Darwin and picked up a couple of spare fuel filters, just in case. Back on the road and the car felt like her old self once more.

What a relief.

On to Mary River.

We had picked a large free camp on the banks of the Mary River. Definitely no swimming here. Too many saltwater crocodiles. It took a while to get to camp, and once we were there, we were both relieved the car was behaving. We made our destination and could just let go of the week of worry.

A couple of nights to chill and onward to Jabiru to explore Kakadu.

 The park has such a national and international reputation and awe-inspiring heritage, we were very eager. The road through to Jabiru was all bitumen which was nice for the drive, out but not the rugged experience I was expecting. We set up camp with plans to visit a couple of special places the next day.

 Unfortunately, we managed to do our Kakadu visit at the wrong time of the year. It was nearing the end of the dry season, and on top of that, the tropical heat had begun to set in about a month early. This meant that a lot of the walks were going to be out of my ability due to my lower tolerance of the heat. That said, we visited some of the best parts of Kakadu.

Day 1 we visited the amazing rock formation and gallery of the ancient people’s rock art at Ubirr. After which we saw the insane antics of the scary ‘salties’, saltwater crocodiles at Cahill Crossing right on high tide. Some of the footage on social media about this crossing is insane.

The crocs were in a feeding frenzy waiting for the Barramundi to come upstream across the flooded causeway. The way they would just position themselves across the river causeway with their mouths open and wait for the fish to swim almost into their mouths as they attempted to catch them was an awesome sight.

Day 2 was a somewhat more serene experience with a Yellow Waters River cruise to view the receding waters and experience the beauty of the flora and fauna of the river and surrounding marsh and flood plains. We even found a bull water buffalo on the banks of the river and a couple of rather large crocs. A pair of roosting White Breasted Sea Eagles were astoundingly large birds of prey searching for their next meal from atop treetops. I really didn’t expect to see such huge birds.

Leaving the tour, hubby decided he wanted to take in the view of Mirray Lookout. Needless to say, that was not for me. Apparently, it was about 1 km to the top and was a very steep climb. It was also 35+ Degrees and in the middle of the day in peak heat. Definitely not my cup of tea.

There were 2 other experiences hubby was keen on checking out, but didn’t do.

1. Jim Jim Falls, apparently a spectacular rock wall with an amazing waterfall when the water flows. Unfortunately, it was dry and taking about 2 hours for 4wd drive vehicles only, followed by an approximately 2 hour climb over exposed rocks. Not an easy walking track and the heat was going to about 37decgrees Celsius. Not my idea of enjoyment.
2. Gunlom Falls which we were planning to explore was unfortunately closed due to park maintenance.

We are eventually planning to go back at the start of the season to see more of this wondrous land when the heat isn’t so intensive.  

Next week we will be on the road to W.A.

That’s it for this email.

We will pick up next week with more of our adventure Stumbling Across Australia.

Stay Safe, Sane, Happy and Healthy.

Love Becky Wilde, XXOO