I took a technology free weekend and went up to a remote lodge next to the Mary River National Park. Certainly no cell phone coverage and no wifi either. I even read a hard back book instead of an ebook. Though i will say i now prefer the ebooks. They're just so much more convenient. Outside of not being able to read for the first or last 10 minutes in a flight. The lodge was about 2 hours from Darwin and half way to Kakadu. It seemed to be the perfect location to space out and to see Kakadu without having to spend all day on a bus. I guess it was technically camping because I was in a tent. But this one did have running water and a little electricity. What made me know it was still camping was when I turned a light on, the bugs swarmed. The insect screens only seemed to do so much.
But when you wake up to wallabies outside your tent eating, the bugs didn't seem so bad.
The lodge itself had reclaimed 10 habitats that they moved from Queensland and built 15 tents. Netty, one of the aboriginals working at the lodge said they were built at a cost of $100,000 a piece. For that, I would think they'd have done a better job of keeping the bugs out. But I digress. It was a great spot with some short walks through the termite mounds.
The next day I took a day trip to Kakadu. We started out driving past Ranger Mine which is apparently the second biggest working uranium mine. It was quite a scene in the middle of a World Heritage listed park. After the quick detour we went on to Nourlangie. We stopped here to look at some rock art. It's crazy to think that this dates back thousands of years. The majority of the rock art sites (some 5,000) are on traditional peoples land and not accessible to tourists. They are typically on ceremonial grounds and very sacred to their people. Most Aboriginal art is of only non-sacred scenes. They don't share their clans deep secrets in art.
Kakadu National Forrest is roughly 20,000 square kilometers. And since 1976 (I think) there has been a law introduced that allows the Aboriginal clans to reclaim the land their people lived on, if they can prove it. Now this isn't talking about showing the house their grand parents lived on, they need to prove back thousands of years. And one of the best ways of doing this is through carbon dating of these rock art sites. Sine the law was introduced, roughly 2/3rds of the land is now back with the original clans.
After checking these sites out we drove a bit further to go for a swim. This was the hardest I've ever worked to get to a pool. The sign said 3KM but with the up and down, over rocks and under trees, it had to have been at least 4KM one way.
The scenery was great but the big payoff was getting to the Garden of Eden. A small, crystal clear rockpool with a water fall which gave a nice shoulder massage.
We just had to be in the lookout for crocs. I swear, there no safe place to swim in this country. The pool was closed in the morning at the lodge because of the snakes (2-3 feet, though not poisonous) that fell in and needed some help getting out.
Getting back to the lodge helped me catch up on some reading. The scenery was well worth the few bug bites I got.
I took a billabong cruise this morning in hopes of seeing the 5 meter croc close by, but came up empty. No water buffaloes either. All I got were a few photos.
Reading "Unbroken" has got me wanting to learn a bit more on the pacific side of WWII, so when I got back to Darwin I spent the arvo at the Defence of Darwin museum. It chronicled 19 Feb 1942, the day Australia was first attacked by the Japanese. The museum had great exhibits of the day with a pretty powerful video showcasing the day from the view point of some locals as well as military. There was quite a large display of guns and tanks used during WWII.
My lens was fogged over but this seemed appropriate. This was from the USS Peary destroyer that was sunk off the Darwin coast. It was the spot of the largest US casualties in Australia during WWII.
Location:Darwin, Northern Territory
