Western Australia , Northern Territory: 14.07. – 02.08.2011

Our last days in Western Australia have been counted and the Northern Territory was at the door step. But there was one pile of stones that we didn’t want to miss. As a teenager Markus has seen pictures of it and since then it was clear: One day … and now the time has come.

 Before we could go on the track to the National Park we got stopped by an elderly gentleman who demanded a road toll of AUD 20.00! Would we still have been in South America we would have shown him the bird and driven thru, unfortunately things like that do not work here. Of course we asked for what this generous donation was supposed to be. So we got told it was for the maintenance of the track as it goes thru private land and the owner had to look after it himself as government does not take care of it no more.  Do we have to mention that the track was not worth 5 cents! Besides this foul smack we did not let it ruin our mood. For the next two days we set up camp a got astonished by the colorful beehive mountains and the fascinating gorges. Mother Nature gave it all to put us to absolute enthusiasm at the Bungle Bungle National Park.

After this trip three days of driving followed that brought us to Katherine and to the Edith Falls. Because it had way too many tourists there we retreated to the Umbrawarra Gorge, were we had our first encounter with flying foxes. Our camp was directly below their dinner tree so the first half of the night we didn’t close an eye, their wings the produce and incredible amount of noise. But who wants to sleep if you can get ‘Dracula’ himself in front of your lens. That’s why we snuck in the middle of the night around that tree… brave enough we did not even have garlic around our neck! Psst, don’t tell anyone but these buggers are purely vegetarian.

After a side trip to the Robin Falls, we liked the area that we spent all of three days there, we hit, like thousand others, Litchfield National Park. Yes we did like the refreshing plunges in the pools at the waterfalls, but we didn’t really get warm with the area. Besides that if we wanted to meet up with the other half of the Gibb-River-Travel-Group again we had to speed up and head for Darwin as they soon would leave the Australian soil all together. We caught Anita and Roger in the middle of a packing frenzy. Nevertheless we spent a few more fun evenings together, before after all they headed towards Africa. But who knows we might meet a fourth time.

We continued in Australia towards Kakadu National Park where we hoped to finally see Saltwater Crocodiles. After a big town we headed for a 4WD track that brought us along some Billabongs to the South Alligator River, as the name mentions, it should be crowded with Salties. As always we wanted to know about track conditions and got green light from a Roadhouse nearby. Also an available road sign at the turn off did not show that we soon would stay in front of shut gates. Well that also happens in Australia. Our disappointment was limited because soon after we found a real nice spot a little elevated and not ten meters from the river away. Of course we set up camp right away.

While Markus sat back and disappeared behind his book, Sonja was gazing thru the binoculars in search of those Salties. As a huge yellow eye appeared in her field of vision Markus only heard; Wow, wow, wow, wow, what a huge bitch… We both hardly got over our astonishment as this giant crocodile slowly cruised by. Out of amazement we did not even think about the camera, well that way this encounter only left its traces in our minds. We guess that we saw about three meters of croc, means that the other half of it was below surface; you do the math. Encouraged of this we quickly decided to add another day at our wild camp, if there is one, for sure there will be more.

However four rednecks ruined our idyllic spot already next noon. Markus was working on the wheel bearings and Sonja hammered along on the Keyboard as these blocks showed up with beer cans at hand they started arguing how to best squeeze their boats past Nisto. Sonja started boiling; she once and for all had enough. For Australians it seems to be common to completely ignore anyone’s privacy as soon as there is any advantage in for them. We’ve more than once made the experience that if a campground is big and empty, people camp right next to us because of the view, that water tap or whatever. But if it is the other way around the spot is already crowded and we try to squeeze in between because there is no other possibility, we get angry looks and where even told to f… off. These four didn’t try to camp in our tiny spot, but their ‘huge’ boats had to be maneuvered past us and of course were parked just in our view. But as we are only guests in this country we swallowed our anger and watched instead of gigantic crocs, gigantic boats.

As that sight was not really exiting anymore we headed off the next day and went for Cooinda, where further highlights of the parks waited for us. From different sides the Yellow Water boat cruise was recommended to us. Our scepticism towards these organized tours didn’t make the decision much easier and the infamous Australian drawback was deep in our mind. After a lengthy back and forth we decided to do a sunrise tour and got richly rewarded. It is that we’ve only seen ‘smaller’ versions of Salties thou quite a few of them, but abundant birdlife and a startling atmosphere made it all up. What a way to begin a day.

Of course we also visited the most famous Aboriginal Art in Australia as well as the one or the other waterfall. However the later did not impress us much no more, maybe it is because of the amount of tourist maybe we just have seen too many of them lately, we didn’t further investigate the cause and turned our back to the Top End for now and headed for the Red Center.

Till soon.

Sonja and Markus

Here it goes to the pictures...