The extraordinary Yellow Water of Kakadu

The Love me lots bird.

Day 2 was basically a quieter day. Richard and Julie had more bad luck with their car and couldn't get it going so we went to call up road service for them and then we went on knowing that they will catch up when they can. We were on a tight time schedule and had to be in Katherine by lunch time on day 4 no matter what. It took a while to travel down to the next campsite and we stopped on the way at the township of Jabiru mainly to apply for the permit to cross Arnhem Land which they said it would be ready to pick up in Katherine. Our friends were serviced very quickly and soon caught up with us.

"Fields" of water lilies

On day 3 the four of us went on a wetlands cruise of Yellow Water. A leisurely cruise in these wetlands is something you really must do when you come to Kakadu. There are so many birds and absolute fields of wild water lilies. Of course viewing crocodiles was a big part of the cruise. Sometimes we were less that metre from a crocodile though most of them were near the banks. We saw spoonbills, whistling ducks by the hundreds, jabirus, sea eagles, darters, magpie geese, rainbow bee-eaters, ibis, ‘love me lots birds commonly named such as they have the curious habit of standing still for hours with the appearance of staring at their reflection in the waters. We also saw these beautiful Jacanas, they’re the ones that walk on water, we also saw some 3 week old baby jacanas, they are so small and delicate they look like big insects. You will be hard pressed to see them on one of the photos. I also loved the wild lilies and was amazed at some junctions to see just acres of lily fields in bloom. We were told that is it a good time for the lilies but not the best time to see the birds... so if there is more birds than this then it would be mind blowing.

Banks were covered by Whistling Ducks. They didn't seem to take to swimming...maybe they are afraid of being a crocodile's meal???

That is a Magpie goose in the background.

Magnificent Sea Eagle at rest on a tree stump

Jabiru in nest

Try to find the baby jacanas here. Below is a close up of the same photo where you can see 2 of them.

After our wonderful cruise we were invited to lunch with Richard and Julie’s friends who were staying at the Cooinda Caravan Park right next to Yellow Water.

In the afternoon we back tracked a bit and went to see more rock art at Nourlangie. These are totally different and appear to be much more ancient and probably more sacred. I was surprised we were privileged to see them if they are so old. By the way we were within ½ metre of the Vice President of China whilst here. (Not that we knew who he was or even which one he was.) His circus almost took over the whole foot track going in the opposite direction to us. We just thought at the time that they were arrogant tourists that think they have the right of way. We wondered why the Customs people were in the carpark.... oops.

Next day we went on our merry way to get the permit for crossing Arnhem Land to visit our son Allan nad his family in Nhulunbuy.