We’re currently in a beautiful little cabin in Jabiru town. Kakadu is the land of the Bininj people in the north of the park and Mungguy people in the south. We acknowledge that this is their land, and we acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging.
On paper, it’s only just over 3 hours to get to Jabiru from Katherine – but it’s 5pm, and we’ve just rolled into our accomodation! We did a couple of decent stops along the way – firstly at Pine Creek, and then secondly at Yurmikmik (just as you enter Kakadu National Park). Because it was only a reasonably short drive today, we did enjoy not needing to get up early and get packed quickly, so we weren’t on the road until after 9am this morning. I grabbed a final coffee at The Black Russian, an interestingly named, but pretty brilliant coffee caravan in Katherine that has been my friend for the past few days.
Out first stop was only a short drive up the road to Pine Creek. We’d planned on stopping in here on our way back down from Darwin – but not being sure of what else was around to see today, we decided to stop in here for some morning tea. We first dropped into a stunning lookout over the old Gold Mine at Pine Creek, and the history of it. We had a look at the Railway Station and old train yards, but unfortunately the full displays weren’t open today. Hopefully they’re open on weekdays, and so perhaps we can still see them when we come down from Darwin. It was still cool to wander round outside and read a bunch of information about the Pine Creek station and railway line. While I was still looking around at things at the railway station, Debbie and the kids went for a walk along a path back towards the centre of town, along a path called the Walk Through Time, which was a great little historical walk with signs identifying different important aspects of the railway line.
We then turned right of the Stuart Highway and started along the Kakadu Highway, heading towards Jabiru. We stopped off at the entrance to the Kakadu National Park for a photo, and then stopped in at the Mary River Ranger Station for some lunch. We chatted with the ranger there, and decided to go for a drive to a short walk that wasn’t too far off the highway. It ended up being a good 20km off the highway, along a dirt road – but at the end we reached the carpark for the Yurmikmik walks. We headed off on the shorter lookout walk, which was only 1km return. Sounded nice and short, and it was – but with it being a lookout, it was fairly uphill, and the heat had definitely started to pick up! The views at the top were stunning, as it looks out over the South Alligator River catchment area.
Before we made our way here to the Anbinik Kakadu Resort, we managed to make it in time to visit the Bowali Visitor Centre – such a beautifully designed centre, and a lovely walkthrough display with info about the flora and fauna of Kakadu. (And actually, I’ve just read how and why both the Bowali and the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre are built and designed that way.) It was great to talk to a guide there briefly and run through the things we’d planned to do over the next few days, and have her confirm that we’ve definitely got some of the best things in mind – she did point us to a couple of extra things to try and squeeze in tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to.
