Wetlands to Marbles

Kakadu doesn’t have a good reputation with a lot of the grey nomads we have met on the road. We are not sure why because we enjoyed our 5 days in the park visiting aboriginal art sites, cruising the wetlands, swimming in a plunge pool beneath a waterfall and scrambling to pools above the falls with one of the traditional owners. We even got to watch crocs catching fish.

We then spent a couple of days in the never never at Mataranka where we floated around in hot springs and watched the daily screening of “We of the Never Never”

Then it was a night beside a wetland at Elliott that some other travelers told us about. (If you are in the area: turn west at the cattle grid as you enter the town, ignore the ‘private property’ sign and drive about 12k down the sandy dirt track.) Thousands of birds fly in and out each day: many more than we saw at Kakadu. On our way we had a light lunch at the famous Daley Waters Pub.

Tennant Creek was our next base

and we did a day trip south to the Devils Marbles before an evening around the camp fire with Jimmy the bush tucker man where we had damper and tea made from a native lemon grass. Jimmy recited a couple of poems and told a few tales.

We crossed the border into Queensland today. We both have colds which is no wonder as winter has kicked in with nights as low as 10 and days only reaching into the mid 20s brrrr.