Aaah and Oooh in Kakadu

Welcome to Week 5!  This was the week that was spent mostly in Kakadu.  What an awesome place. Plenty of Ooohs and Aaaahs this week.  The scenery is amazing. We stayed just out of Jabiru which is the main township in Kakadu and based ourselves there for day trips out to the rest of the park - which is huge.   The only commercial touristy thing we did there was a Yellow Water Billabong Cruise which entailed getting up at 5am to drive the 45 minutes to be there for 6.15am for the dawn cruise.   Well worth the effort.  We saw so many wonderful things that morning.  The bird life is incredible and the water plants that are in flower at the moment are so lovely to look at.  The sun came up over the water and it was so peaceful and gorgeous that we all wanted it to go on for longer!  It was a case of Discovery Channel Live in the boat when two male juvenile crocs decided to have a territorial spat over a slice of river bank - they were quietly sunbaking one moment and turned into fierce fast moving aggressive lizards the next.  The tourists on our boat were sufficiently silenced after that - even the yanks!  We took the car into Jim Jim and Twin Falls on another day that week and did the obligatory deep river crossing with just big white guide posts to show you where to drive through the water.  Very exciting for the little gals in the backseat who madly tried to video the crossing with their cameras only to play back and hear major giggling and comments like "Woah Dad, look at the water, it's right up to the window" and "Hey Dad, did you see the croc".  It was a deep crossing but we made it there and back and the reward at Twin Falls was worth the effort.  Rachel celebrated her birthday on Thursday of this week and we decorated the tent with a brithday banner and she swam in the waterfall at Gunlom in the afternoon.  We visited many Aboringinal Art sites and were blown away with the detail and number of paintings that you could reach out and touch if you were allowed to.  We watched the sunset from the top of Ubirr Rock - something we will all remember for a long time to come.  On Friday we needed to move on (otherwise we may never get home!!) and we drove back out to Katherine for food supplies and to spend the night before heading to the WA border.  We went to Macca's and got ice cream cones instead of a cake for Rach and stuck candles in them in the carpark much to the amusement of the local Aboriginals who were hanging around at the time. 
We kept moving and made a stamp the next day for WA.  We went over the border and through the quarantine area without incident (having eaten all fruit and veg the day before and for lunch that day).  Only had to ditch a bit of honey.  We made it into Kununurra to a van park (which was not too nice but the only powered site available at the time and having been in Kakadu we needed to power up to the mains again) and set up for an overnight stop.  Unbelievably, I bumped into a lady in the shower block who we saw in Cooktown in 2008 - I did not recognise her but she certainly knew me!  This is not such a good thing methinks.......  Anyway, she remembered us as the poor people who got blown away in the tent and broke a tent pole overnight in Cooktown and she told us how she and her husband thought about us a lot and wondered how we were going and if we were still camping!  We visited their van for big reunions and we were all on our best behaviour.  It wasn't till we were leaving that Mal confessed in hushed tones that he had absolutely no idea or memory of them at all!  We rolled out the next day and drove to Purnululu National Park (used to be known as the Bungle Bungles).  It was a shockingly long drive over boring bitumen in the searing heat - 27 degrees by 8.30am.  The road was slow as it is the main drag through from Broome so there are a million vanners using it  - including Marge and Gerald on Channel 18 but that is a story for another time (will have to stop giggling to be able to type).  Anyway, 3 hours to do 240 kms, and then we arrived at the turn off for the Bungles.  We aired down the tyres to do the dirt road in - 52 km's.  Not a road for the faint hearted I have to say and it took 2 and a half hours to get there.  Numerous water crossings and slow going but an amazing bush camp at the end of it all.  Totally private and secluded and we loved not having any people around us or traffic noise - or Gerald and Marge.  The next day we went walking and exploring and were all blown away by the rock formations and the Bungles themselves.  We spent a full day out in the heat (don't worry Dad, we drank heaps of water and Mal's headache was nothing to do with not having enough water and everything to do with Coke withdrawal).  Back at the campsite we had dinner and Mal had his Coke and all was well.  We headed to bed and snuggled in for a great night of quiet - till we were woken an hour or so later by a herd of runaway cattle from the cattle station next door to the park.  They were so very close to the tent and so very loud.  We grabbed the girls from the floor of the tent and put them up on the bed platform with us in case they were trampled and sat it out - mate, they make a heap of noise and when I opened the window to shine my headlite out at them, I was face to face with the most enormous bull snorting at me.  I could see right up his nose - not pretty.  They all eventually moved off except one who decided to lie down and sleep in the dry river bank behind the camper trailer.  Fabulous.  Did you know that cows snore?  Well they do, and they are loud and they have no one to poke them to get them to roll over so you just have to suck it up and deal with the noise.  She moved on too later in the night since all her cow friends were mooing from up the river for her to join them and I finally thought I would get some peace and quiet.  As I realigned myself so I could see the marvellous starry view from out the window, and the girls had been removed to the lower accomodation section, I started to relax just as the dingoes started howling.  Lucky it was a private camp site.  I lost it, Mal just laughed loud and lustily and I lost it even more.  The kids slumbered on and Mal began snoring and I began howling for something to do - and to feel more like I belonged somewhere cos the trailer just wasn't doing it for me that night. We left the next day - back to Kununurra which was the same 2.5 hours back to the highway and another boring and hot 3 hours back to  Kununurra.  We are now into Week 6 and we are ready to head out from here along the Gibb River Road tomorrow.  The start of this week has been spent getting meat cryovaced ready for the Gibb River and we have refilled the trailer water tank and fuelled the car.  We have aired the roof top tent (Mal's penthouse suite) and we did a huge grocery shop so our  pantry box, fruit bag and car food bag are all full to overflowing.  No supplies for the next 10 days or so.  No internet either so the next post will be a week 6 and 7 combination I think.
Which brings us to the good the bad and the ugly.  The good - so hard to choose one thing - probably equally good was Kakadu and seeing the Bungle Bungles up close and for real.  The bad - the cows wins that one hands down and the ugly - well that would be price of fuel at Turkey Creek - a cool $2 a litre for diesel, but you can only have some mister, if you give me your license first or your credit card and then you go out and fill er up and then you come in and pay and when I happy, I give you back license or credit card - Mal gave him my license!!!  Without a fill up here, you can't do the Bungles without running out of fuel and we have the biggest fuel tank of any fourby out here - these guys weren't happy when Mal pumped in a tiny 30 litres - all we needed to get in and out without running out of fuel. Or maybe the ugly award goes the the cow's nostril........
Plenty of Dream Stealers this week - all telling us the road to Mitchell Falls is undo-able.  We shall see.  Also plenty of people telling us the Gibb River road is terrible - worst for 5 years.  We shall see.  The most direct piece of advice was from a girl who told me to breathe deeply and wear a good bra.  Hmmm.  Could be an interesting week ahead!
Lots of love and sun rays,
Jane Mal Rachel and Eloise