Escaping New Zealand’s wintery August, we arrive in Darwin to 30°C and Northern Territory’s dry season.
In wet season, November through to April, roads can be impassable and our Jucy Coaster campervan would be unavailable, Star RV’s depot closed.
Groceries stashed in cupboards and 50L chilly bin-style fridge, we head southeast. On the dusty, red trail at Ubirr we walk past centuries-old Aboriginal-painted fish, dog-like animals, handprints and figures in shades of yellow, orange, red and brown decorating rock faces. Viewed from a rock lookout, the sun drops beyond verdant wetlands, streaking the sky orange as black and white birds cause a commotion. In darkness, we drive to Jabiru’s Kakadu Lodge and camping ground, happy there’s no need to unpack or set anything up.
Arnhem Land, around 97,000sq-km, is Aboriginal-owned. Permits are needed to visit, hence we take a day tour. We learn of spirits creating trade paths, ancient burial traditions and sacred sites, what different characters depict at rock art sites and visit Gunbalanya community. The remote Aboriginal town’s art centre employs 400. Bark art, woven baskets and jewellery, paintings and didgeridoos all tempt.
At Jabiru’s Bowali Visitor Centre I learn more about Aboriginal culture as well as of Kakadu National Park’s landscapes, the World Heritage Site we drive. There’s stone country, savanna woodlands, monsoon forests, billabongs, tidal flats and flood plains.
At Nawurlandja, a rock lookout reveals a vast, flat, savannah woodland, a shadowy range wavering across the horizon and an island-like escarpment. At Nourlangie, a short drive away, a 1.5km loop leads through an outdoor gallery of rock art on sandstone walls, some painted 20,000 years ago.
Cooinda’s Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre tells of creation stories and old ways. Nearby, Yellow Water Campground has a pool and bistro, but we’re barely there before cruising Yellow River on a sunset cruise. Crocodiles lie on banks or float like logs, a darter bird spears a fish with its long, pointed beak, and a red-crested, black and white ‘Jesus’ bird stalks across lily pads.
Southwest, through rust-red landscape, we reach the 1870s gold mining town of Pine Creek. A stamper battery, steam engine and other mining artefacts mark its start. The Shed, a car museum with a resident blue-tongued lizard, displays Holdens of all ages, and motorbikes.
We continue southwards to the home of Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk National Park. Its camping ground pool is refreshing in the heat before we cook dinner in the back of the campervan. Katherine River snakes through its wide, first gorge where small, sandy beaches bear the prints of crocodiles. We cruise its bends, dwarfed by towering red and orange rock walls. We walk 400m across rock to a smaller, boat for the narrower second gorge. Its walls cast shadows across greenish water. In
the short, third gorge, a freshwater crocodile basks on a rock. We return to the second to swim in cool, clear pools.
Further south, I drift with the current, on a noodle, along the tepid, thermal Bitter Springs, in Elsey National Park.
Returning to Katherine, a flat, sleepy town of around 10,000, we hear how horses are broken in and mustering dogs trained at Outback Experience. At Katherine Museum, I discover Russian farmers farmed peanuts here, and read about the Flying Doctors, and second world war bombing of the town.
Nitmiluk National Park’s Edith Falls are picturesque. A waterfall tumbles down a reddish-brown cliff into the upper pool we swim in. Walking on the 2.6km trail gives views of the middle waterfall. Far below, amidst greenery, its whitewater slashes orange rocks to tumble into a deep blue pool. Descending, we find the lower pool partially hemmed by vertical rock.
Litchfield Tourist Park, within Litchfield National Park, is our final stop. We get up close to elongated, orientated north-south, magnetic mounds at the Magnetic Termite Mound site.
Florence Creek runs between reddish, chocolate-coloured rock forming Buley Rock Holes where people soak. We follow it, finding more picturesque pools tucked in shady, lush monsoon forest, to Florence Falls which cascades into a pool circled by pink and orange rock cliffs. Wangi Falls spills over sandstone rock into a large plunge pool.
Then, we head for Darwin, our home away from home, ending our 1,500km journey through the red Top End.
The Jucy Campervan was provided to Eleanor by Star RV.
WORDS — ELEANOR HUGHES
