Day 95 – 22nd August – Kakadu (almost)

We finally got ourselves organised enough to move camp.  We packed up and inched our way closer to Kakadu.  Our first stop was a place called “Window to the Wetlands”.  It’s an interactive information centre aimed at teaching the kids about the wetlands.  The view from the balcony was pretty good… this is our first glimpse of some water buffalo (much easier glimpsing them through binoculars than through my camera).  We spent ages on the balcony which was at tree height so we managed to add a few more birds to our birdwatching list…  

Next, we headed to Corroboree Billabong where we had booked in for a wetland cruise on the billabong.  We were a little disappointed with our cruise, we expected to see loads of wildlife and birds, but to be honest, there was hardly any.  We did manage to spot a couple of new birds bringing our total to 20 new birds in two days, which is pretty good in my opinion…  

The banks were lined with a billion water lilies.  There is more evidence here of how dry the last wet season was.  These water lilies are standing way above the water.  What should happen is during the wet season, they should have been submerged under the rising flood waters.  The submerged lilies then die off leaving the new season lilies to regenerate and sit on top of the water as they should… 

Love these Jabirus, otherwise known as black-necked storks… their black necks are actually a beautiful shimmering green…. 

Of course, there were crocs.  Check out this monster… someone shot a water buffalo a few weeks back.  Since then there has been a load of crocs hanging around that area.  They had their feast until the carcass started to rot.  Apparently the crocs are a bit fussy about their meat being fresh so they won’t eat it anymore… instead they lie there waiting for the less fussy feral pigs to come along, attracted by the smell. 

After our cruise we set up camp at the Corroboree Tavern Caravan Park.  It wasn’t a bad place, it was just chock full of cane toads.  I have mentioned before my completely irrational fear of frogs… multiply that by a billion to know how I feel about cane toads…. eeeewwww!  You know your husband really loves you when, at 1am in the morning, he willingly treks across the caravan park with you and then chases all the cane toads out of the girls toilets…