Darwin & Kakadu Escape, Day 1

Arriving in Darwin at midnight has the advantage of you having ample space on the roads while getting used to a manual gear stick again. The inconvenience on the other hand being the increased difficulty of finding appropriate accommodation for the night. Since the night was already well advanced I decided to rough it a bit and see how comfortable a night in the Yaris would be ... Lets just say that I used a few hours trying out all 4 seats and none of them proved much better than sleeping on gravel.

Early morning I happily left the Yaris for a quick morning stroll in the park - it seems there are a lot of Toyota owners in Darwin, since the park was full of people that had actually chosen to sleep on gravel rather than in their car. I happily saluted at least 50 happy campers slowly waking to greet a new day. But quickly got a bit scared about the fuel economy of the toyota, since the greetings were constantly meet with a plea for money .. guess I was lucky to go for the 1.3L!

CousCous is dead - long live gnocchi! :-) I have started really liking to cook with gnocchi in the bush, they take a fraction more gas than CousCous, but makes a much better meal .. and will function as an excellent (but over time shrinking) pillow. I got myself fueled up on gnocchi, fruit, gas, water and other necessities in Darwin and apart from using 2 * 20 min in two carefully selected parks I could not wait to get out of Darwin and take on Kakadu.


Center of Kakadu lies approximately 260 kilometers East of Darwin, with a speed limit of 130 most of the way that makes the drive a piece of cake ... except there are quite a few places on the way worth visiting and the automobile I was flying had a sound profile going exponential towards the stratosphere when pushed above 110km/t.
First stop on the way was Fogg Dam (Danes have to be very careful with the pronunciation here) which constitute a failed attempt of rice farming turned into excellent wetlands only 70km out of Darwin. This was also the first encounter with signs warning about the risk of being eaten by a crock!



Fogg Dam was an amazing place - please take a look at more pictures by following the Picasa link at the end of this post - but Kakadu was calling and I was getting tired. When it comes to welcoming tourists Kakadu does really well. Soon after you have entered Kakadu you can pick up the "visitor guide" that tells you everything the average tourist needs to know - and probably even a bit more - in combo with a very helpful visitor centre in Bowali I decided to camp at Malabanjbanjdju, not because it was particular good, but because I was tired and it was close. Hm ... next to a billabong means:

Only one thing to do - eat so much gnocchi deliciousness that no crock would be able to swallow me and then hit bed hard so that I could be in top shape for day 2, just before going to bed I went down and took a look at the water, no crocks spotted only a snake - I could sleep safe :-D

Darwin & Kakadu Escape, Day 1

Long Weekend Darwin & Kakadu Escape

Don't really know why, but as the long weekend approached I started feeling jittery. The last few weekends I had tried to re-explore Sydney, which had been fun, but I was running out of ideas; stalking Albatrosses is hard work and slightly boring when you are alone .. and since the wind had dropped predictions were that even if I sat down at Long Bay alone for 3 days I could very well end up seeing nothing of interest. Jarrod and Adelle were back in town, but counting on them throwing another wedding was probably a bit optimistic - guess it will take a while before Jarrod puts the "dancing legs" back on again :-)

I wanted to go camping, but weather was not looking promising around Sydney and even with an extra day you can easily end up using more time in the car than on the ground. By absolute coincidence(?) Qantas had sent an email proclaiming how incredibly cheap you can fly in Australia - obviously the cheap prices that makes you start daydreaming are near impossible to get and since they are one way there is a good possibility of Qantas earning what they need on your return ticket. However, the possibility of minimizing the need for using extra days off work was very tempting and I realized that if I left Sydney Thursday night after work - Friday would be way too expensive - and took the insanely early (but cheap) flight out of Darwin Tuesday morning 1.45am I would be able to have 4*24 hours in Darwin/Kakadu for the price of 1 day off and without being slaughtered economically.

I had an amazing trip! There was a bit of everything; snakes, crocks, camping, vistas and birds(!) It was very tempting to want to see it all .. so I tried! However with only 4 days and a rented Toyota Yaris that was not the supersonic speed prepared version - I obviously chose the 1.3L since it was the cheapest - I realized that something would have to be saved for another trip ... how sad :-)

I have only just made it through my photos and I will need a couple of days to get some pictures online and make up a couple of stories to go along with "the artwork" so stay tuned and it will all happen here at this site in the next couple of days :-)

The numbers were: 1596 photos, 98 hours in NT, 25 liters of water (I was a bit "damp"), 2 gas canisters lost in Sydney airport (you are not allowed to fly with them), 800km in the Yaris, $80 for petrol, 3 campsites, 2 boat cruises, 32-34 daytime temperature - good solid winter performance!, 1.5kg of gnocchi, 1000 mosquito bites, 1 rufous owl and a minimum of another 51 previously unseen birds

After going through my photos it looks like the list of birds below constitute the feathered wildlife I do not recall having seen previously. There are still a few pictures where some ID help could result in an addition or two to the tally.
Orange-footed Scrubfowl
Magpie Goose
Wandering Whistling-Duck
Plumed Whistling-Duck
Radjah Shelduck
Green Pygmy-goose
Pied Heron
Cattle Egret
Intermediate Egret
Black Bittern
Glossy Ibis
Black-necked Stork
Brolga
Comb-crested Jacana
Whiskered Tern
Banded Fruit-Dove
Pied Imperial-Pigeon
Partridge Pigeon
Red-collared Lorikeet
Varied Lorikeet
Red-winged Parrot
Rufous Owl
Barking Owl
Azure Kingfisher
Blue-winged Kookaburra
Forest Kingfisher
Large-billed Gerygone
Helmeted Friarbird
Silver-crowned Friarbird
White-gaped Honeyeater
White-throated Honeyeater
Bar-breasted Honeyeater
Rofous-banded Honeyeater
Dusky Honeyeater
Grey-crowned Babbler
Mangrove Robin
Lemon-bellied Flycatcher
Northern Fantail
Leaden Flycatcher
Shining Flycatcher
Spangled Drongo
Yellow Oriole
Olive-backed Oriole
White-winged Triller
Varied Triller
White-breasted Woodswallow
Little Woodswallow
Torresian Crow
Zitting Cisticola
Long-tailed Finch
Crimson Finch
Yellow-rumped Mannikin