Arrived in Darwin 3 days ago with just a bit of time to explore before we headed off at 6:30am for Kakadu National Park. Our travels on a tour bus took us past river systems and wetlands and finally into the park. We stopped at the rock escarpments to check out the ancient Aboriginal rock painting at Ubirr, some of them over 3,000 years old. The rocks were great fun to climb around and we had great views at the top!
Termite mounds were all over the place. Some were more than 6 feet tall. Sometimes the termites would build their mound right next to a tree. They would bore into the tree and eat out the center. The aboriginal men would then use these hollow trunks to build their musical instrument called a digeridoo. This instrument is played only by the men and has a deep, beautiful sound.
This picture of a digeredoo is from Wikipedia. Although we saw many of these musical instrucments being played by Aboriginal I haven't taken a picture yet. Permission must be granted before you take a photo of an Aboriginal person.
We took a cruise down the East Alligator River with an aboriginal guide who told us about the crocs here and talked of survival skills for the aboriginal people. The river may be called Alligator River but there are no alligators here, only crocodiles and very big ones! As we moved down the river we saw dozens of crocs lazing on the sides of the river and even had one come up from the bottom of the river right by our boat. Very scary!
We spent the night at the Gagudju Crocodile Hotel and slept in the belly of the croc! Fun!! Borrowed this picture from the hotel website! Sure wish that was me in the bikini but I'm afraid the great food has taken it's toll!!
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