Day 28 Kakadu

Today started by driving off to the Mirray lookout. The lookout was 250 meters straight up from the carpark so although it was only a 300-meter walk, it was super exhausting as you had to walk at a very big incline. Coupled with the 33-degree heat at 10:50, I was super tired when we got to the top. You could see all the land below, though. When we left there, we went to another lookout that went up a big slope as a rock came out of the ground on an angle. You could see the full plateau from up there. Then we drove to a little bit of a longer walk that went through a bunch of caves that had old aboriginal rock art in them. The first ones we saw were under a small outcrop and it had a few people drawn on it. Then it went to a cave with lots of really old art that was drawn thousands of years ago. We kept walking to another lookout that was the tallest one we had been up so far, and it looked really good. While we were walking up, we saw a big dingo cross the path and walk through the trees. The dingo looked really massive, and it was much bigger than I expected them to be. After that, we drove back to the van until about 5 pm where we drove to Cahills Crossing, which has a lot of crocodiles in it. When we got there, we saw a medium sized saltwater crocodile sitting on the bank as it slept, and some people were fishing for barramundi on the rocks as well. Then we drove to another walk which had lots of really old rock art and this massive rock to watch the sunset at. The plains below really reminded me of Africa and when the sun set it shone bright red. We have seen lots of fires so far but the one that we saw today was really close and you could see massive clouds of smoke nearby. When we drove back to the van, we even passed where the fire was, and you could still see lots of small flames in the burnt bushland. Before we drove back though, we went back to Cahills Crossing to see what it was like when it was dark. When we got there, there was dozens of bats flying overhead and when you shone the torch down the river, you could see the eyes of about 20-30 crocodiles shining on the torch. We realized they had all been there before and we couldn’t see them. There were also heaps of tropical bugs flying around like moths the size of your hand and some mosquitoes and flies the size of your little finger. When we were driving back, we saw heaps of animals like multiple dingoes and a kangaroo that jumped across the road. After that, we got back to the van. Today was another really big day and tomorrow will be a bit smaller, I think.

Aboriginal rock art dated to a few thousand years ago

Crocodile at Cahills Crossing

View from the rock on the second place we visited

Cahills Crossing - Can you spot the saltwater crocodile on one of the banks?

Some really old rock art near a cave

Sun setting at the rock lookout