The day started super early today, as we headed for a 7am dawn cruise through Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge – the lands of the Jaowyn people. The sun had just started to come up when we made our way down to the jetty and hopped on the boat. Just a simple barge-style boat – but that made it so easy to see everything as we cruised through the Gorge. The sun peaking over the top of the edges of the Gorge…

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…

A day of exploring some of the incredible rock art around Kakadu today – and really, only a tiny portion. We spent the day in the Burrungkuy region of Kakadu – made it to a few sites, and a few lookouts. First stop was the main Burrungkuy site, where there are a few different locations of rock art in what’s known as the Anbangbang gallery. It’s was a really easy walking loop to start the day off, with only few…

Today’s Kakadu adventures were all down in the Ngurrungurrudjba (known as Yellow River) region of the Park. The first stop was the Warradjan Cultural Centre. I mentioned our visit to the Bowali Visitor Centre when we arrived here in Kakadu – that centre focuses on the flora and fauna of Kakadu, whereas the Warradjan Cultural Centre focuses on the local people and their culture and history. It was an amazing display of so much information – again, one of those…

So don’t hear me wrong, Kakadu has been incredible to visit, and we’ve seen some amazing things, and learnt so much – but today was the first day on this trip that we felt we might’ve stayed one day too long somewhere. That’s essentially because we ran out of things to do and see. We have worked out that Kakadu’s peak dry season really doesn’t kick in until at least July, and gets going from there to October. There’s just…

We’re settling into a really comfortable unit on Larrakia country, now known as Darwin. We pay our respects to the Larrakia people, who are the traditional owners of this land, and acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging. We headed off from Kakadu around 9am – not really in any great rush, because the drive from Jabiru up to Darwin is only a short 250km. Our first stop was at the Wetland View Top visitor and information centre (used to…

We had a slower morning today – Debbie headed off to Lifeblood to donate some plasma, and the kids and I enjoyed our bacon & eggs breakfast that the place we’re staying in had generously left for us. Mid morning, we headed down to Pudakul, a beautiful Aboriginal family business who operate cultural tours and a bunch of other experiences of their land and community, just down the road from Humpty Doo. On a whim, we saw a brochure yesterday…

First stop of the day was another markets – the Parap Village Markets. A really well known and loved market by Darwin locals – so much so, that people apparently trek across Darwin to come here to have a laksa for breakfast from Mary’s every Saturday morning. I did have dreams of having laksa for breakfast, but I didn’t end up feeling keen for it at 9am in the morn. And by the time 11am rolled around, the line was…

We were 50/50 on doing a night or two in and around Litchfield to explore the park when we were planning the trip – but it’s only an hour and a half drive from Darwin, so we decided to do it all in one day. That meant a little bit of driving today, but it was a brilliant day. We came along the Litchfield Park Rd from the north and really enjoyed the drive into the park. Our first stop…

Today was mostly about Crocodylus Park. This place wasn’t on our original plan, but with the growing excitement and intrigue into crocs in the NT from most of us, we decided it would be worth a visit to see a few more and learn a bit more about them as well. We arrived a bit after 9:30 and had a brief wander before heading back to watch the croc feeding and the talk about them. The feeding was a bit…