Kakadu & Mary River National Parks

One of the best things about Northern Territory is the ability to legally drive slightly faster than in other places around Australia.

We left Darwin quite early in the morning to make good use of the day and still arrive at Cooinda Lodge within daylight. We admired the frilled termite mounds on the way (probably to help cool and also collect water when it rains). After a brief toilet stop in Adelaide River, the first proper stop was the Mary River ranger station, where they had useful maps and info about the state of the roads, as well as relevant local stories.

Upper Ikoymarrwa (Moline) Falls are not far from the ranger station, and were a welcoming shady and cool stop after the drive from Darwin.

Bukbukluk lookout offers beautiful views towards the plains and nearby ranges that look very similar to the Cockburn ranges in the Kimberley. There were lots of smallish fires burning so the whole area was very smoky. We admired the yellow flowers of kapok trees but also Darwin Woollybutt Trees and Kimberley rose (or sticky kurrajong).

We came across a fire ants mound and we watched them try to remove a stick that had fallen into it.

We stayed at Cooinda Lodge three nights and really enjoyed it. We stayed in a lodge room, but they have other options as well. During the day it was a bit busy being school holidays, especially in the common areas (pools, restaurants). But the evenings, nights and mornings were magnificent with that tranquillity and quietness that remote places, with no background industry or vehicle noises, can offer.

We visited Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) rock (and walked to Kunwarrddehwarrde Lookout as well). We were planning to walk by ourselves, but arrived in the carpark as a tour was starting with an Aboriginal ranger, so we went with that group. We found out some interesting things about how and why they start the fires, local dream stories as well as the significance of rock paintings in that area. We learned that there are two types of rock paintings – the ones that have an education, story-telling purpose, and the ones that are simply graffiti. The local traditional owners often repaint the old paintings that have a message-conveying significance, and that is why some of them appear quite recent. The significant one on this walk is about lightning man (and controller of big storms), Namarrkon, as well as a Creation ancestor, Namondjok. There were also stories about how the local women make string for bags and fishing lines – very similar to how the San people in Africa do, only they used a different source, either the bark of the Kurrajong tree or the leaves of sand palms. We admired the resilient plants growing in the tiniest cracks in the big boulders, fed by invisible soil. We saw a small death adder near the base of a tree – apparently there’s no brown or taipan snakes left as they all died after eating cane toads.

From there we drove to Anbangbang billabong and did the 2.8 km walk around it – we saw lots of birds as well as some black wallaroos. And, to get a different perspective on it, we then walked to the nearby Nawurlandja Lookout where, after a short but steep walk, we got amazing panoramic views over the billabong and surrounding plains.

It was a longer but also steep-ish walk to get to Mirray Lookout, through forest recovering from a not very far burn, which took us to a properly built shelter on Mt Cahill, which again offered very nice views all around.

Sunset and sunrise cruises on Yellow Water Billabong and other tributaries of the South Alligator River gave us the opportunity to spot a huge array of wildlife.

A not small saltwater crocodile got annoyed with all the spectators and disappeared into the water as if he was never there.

We witnessed something quite amazing – a family of magpie geese getting their goslings across the river on the other shore. The father goose did not mind the two big boats full of spectators around them. And the three female geese in the family waited for them on the other side, ready to jump to their defence if something happened.

Cahill’s Crossing is a bridge to cross into eastern Arnhem Land, made famous by various crocodile encounters. We did not have a proper 4WD or a permit to enter Arnhem Land so remained on the western side of the crossing and just admired it from the viewing platform.

From Cahill’s Crossing we headed back, to East Alligator picnic area carpark to do the Barderdjilidji sandstone walk (there is a longer, riverside walk, but it was closed). Barderdjilidji means roots of waterlilies.

We came across an amazing sight of a jabiru standing guard on top of one of the rocks.

Ubirr rock is a Aboriginal rock art gallery and not far from it there is a very nice lookout (with views over the Nadab floodplain into Arnhem Land). The rock art includes a story about Namarrkan sisters, one about a thief, and one about the Rainbow serpent.

We drove around Jabiru, which is very small / we saw it all in less than 10 minutes.

We stopped at Mamukala Wetlands but there wasn’t much birdlife.

Mary river wilderness retreat is quite close to Arnhem Hwy so it can be a bit noisy, but luckily there weren’t too many trucks. They had a pack of resident wallaroos, owls and (now ubiquitous) cane toads.

We were lucky enough to spot some brolgas as well – just enjoying the grass, no courtship dances.

Walking around Mary River Billabong at sunset was peaceful if slightly eerie as there was nobody else apart from us.

We did one of the jumping crocodile cruises on Adelaide River (the Spectacular) where we saw not only crocs, but also whistling and black kites and king fishers.

From there we wanted to visit Window on the wetlands, which is very close, but it was closed unfortunately. So we went to Fogg Dam where we learned about its interesting history and the unsuccessful attempt to grow rice in this area. It is now a spectacular nature reserve, where we saw lots of birds and some of the biggest golden orb weaver spiders ever.

The cruise on Corrobboree billabong was by far the best and most informative on this trip. We were a bit envious of the houseboats as well, just not sure if mosquitoes might be an issues during the night, but we’ll probably try them out for a future holiday. The highlight were definitely the jabirus and ducklings, but it was also good too see some fresh water crocodiles as well.

Our last stop on the way back to Darwin was Humpty Doo, where we stopped briefly at the famous pub and to see the boxing crocodile.