Monday, May 16, 2011

Kakadu

Kakadu is Australia's largest reserve, covering over 19,000 square kilometers. It boasts a wide variety of different environments, including wetlands, savannahs, huge outcroppings of rocks, swamps and woodlands. We drove the 350 kilometers through the park, admiring the vistas, stopping at Nourandie to see rock art which is thousands of years old, and the caves which were home to the aborigines 20,000 years ago, we hiked to the Mirrai lookout and went for a 10 km walk through the bush at Yurmikmik to an exquisite waterfall and rock pool. It is a vast and special place. 













Kakadu is also full of crocs, both fresh water crocs, which apparently won't bother you if you leave them alone, and salt water crocs, or salties, which will. The salties have a ferocious reputation, and you hear stories like the woman who put her hand in the water of a pond to see if it was warm, was grapped by the wrist by a saltie, pulled into the water in a flash, and never seen again, except for her bloody sandal found floating several hours later. While you never know what to make of these stories, I can tell you that I didn't go near the ponds we passed - except for the rock pond near the water fall, where we took a quick dip - after seeing some earlier visitors safely return.

Tonight we are in Katherine, the gateway to the Kimberly, which is supposed to be an area of outstanding beauty, We are all looking forward to a good nights sleep after a day of exertion - and then tomorrow we visit Katherine Gorge. 
Katherine seems like a pleasant little town - like Darwin, it has a tropical feel, complete with towering palms. One thing which seems a constant in Australia, Aussies love their beer and wine - there are pubs everywhere, and even drive through bottle shops where you can buy your favorite libation without even getting out of your car. 
And now, today’s language lesson - if you order chips (that means fries) in a restaurant, and ask for ketchup, the server will not know what you are talking about, here it is called tomato sauce - even on the Heinz bottles.  Ketchup simply doesn’t exist here. So ask for tomato sauce, and your server will likely respond “yeah”.
So far we have driven 3400 kilometers - it's been a great ride so far.

1 comment:

  1. Looking at the beautiful waterfalls ... I guess the dip is not an option...with all the stories about crocks...

    Tomato sauce ? ... funny

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