Days 6 to 9.
Alison had to work today, so we drove her in and then went back to Darwin to have a walk along the waterfront.
Lots of backpackers in the parks and water areas and lots of eateries in the plaza.
There were a couple of Navy ships moored along the jetty, one being a massive French ship.
They had an enclosed wave pool in the park and lots of tourists were bobbing around in the washing machine chop, probably thinking that this was the way surf in Australia behaved. WRONG!.
It was quite humid, so we walked back to the unit to have a bit of relaxation before going out to pick up Ali from work, later that afternoon.

Today, we decided to head off to Kakadu for the week-end. Booked our accommodation and headed off. The girls didn’t want to go back in to Leaning Tree Lagoon to see where we had been bogged, so kept on going to Jabiru. We booked in to the Abinik Resort for a 2 bedroom cabin. It was clean, but very dated and the price was very high for what you got. My bed had springs almost popping through the mattress and the ceiling fans were only one speed – ballistic. Anyway, it was better than sleeping in a tent.

Drove out to the Rangers station and had a look around. It has changed since 1975 but the original building is still there, although fenced off due to asbestos contamination and having been burnt in a bushfire.

We drove down to Cahill’s Crossing, on the East Alligator River and saw a 4wd had gone over the edge, apparently during the night. There were a couple of people fishing but we saw no crocodiles.

Next, we headed out to Ubirr to check out the rock art and catch the sunset over the floodplains. Beryl and I were amazed at the volume of people here and remembered back in 1975 that we didn’t see anyone else at this spot. The rock art has faded dramatically and been damaged by wasps and perhaps people touching it. There are now walkways and railings to deter people from physical contact with the art.

We had an hour or so to wait for the sunset and the smoke from burn-offs would make it a nice one.
About 80 people were lined up on top of Ubirr and it wasn’t pleasant. One lady made loud comments about how she sees better sunsets from her bathroom window back home, where ever that might be, and that this was a waste of film. I commented that she was still using film! She huffed and told me that I knew what she meant. Go home lady.

We walked back to the car in twilight and then stopped in at the Crocodile Resort for dinner, which was quite nice and reasonably priced.

Leaving Jabiru, we dropped in to Mamukala wetlands bird hide to see if any birds were there and heard a lady complaining. Yep, it was the same one from the previous evening at Ubirr, so we left and continued on along the Arnhem Highway towards Darwin.

We did stop at the Gungarre Forest walk, near the Aurora Kakadu Resort and did the loop walk.

Wow it was hot and humid but worth the stroll.

Chris then took us in to Shady Camp, some 70klm from the highway, along gravel roads. There were a lot of people there and it is a well known location for barramundi fishing contests. We saw a massive saltwater croc in the freshwater side of the barrage wall and it appeared to have a deformed or damaged snout, with the bottom teeth protruding up like pigs tusks. About a dozen people were fishing off the barrage wall and I saw barramundi being landed frequently. They looked to be under legal size but they all went into the catchers bags, with no releases evident.

We had ‘lunch’ under a huge monsoon forest tree, loaded with Corellas. They were very noisy and animated, but entertaining. From there, it was a fairly uneventful trip back to Darwin.