Day 97 – 24th August – Kakadu

It is so hot here…. hot and muggy… who’d have thought it was like this in August?

Today was hard work… we were out exploring in the heat of the day.  Our first stop was Anbangbang Billabong.  On our travels we have learned that a billabong is a pool of water that never dries up…  This one was quite pretty with the escarpment in the background.  We saw all the usual birds we come to expect at a billabong but unfortunately, no new birds for our list. 

This is the path around the edge of the billabong.  Check out the distance between the path and the actual water… that’s the stay-away-from-the-crocs-safety-zone 

Just up the road is Nourlangie Rock, a popular spot for viewing Aboriginal rock art.  Following the circular loop walk you first come across this awesome cave.  It is actually an occupation cave that was inhabited by the Aborigines over a very long period of time.   Check out the rock on the ground at the centre of the photo.  If you look closely you can see some small potholes.  These hollows are made by thousands of years of grinding seeds and things with a grindstone. 

We were super lucky and happened to walk into the cave just before a Ranger came along to give a presentation.  He was an extremely passionate and intelligent young fellow.  His talk was about the occupation of the cave through the ages.  He had a whole range of artifacts that an archaeologist had dug up some time ago.  The items ranged from 8,000 years old to several hundred years old.  He spoke about the landscape and how it changed from a pre-estuarine to estuarine to a freshwater environment and how the weapons and tools and animals and plant life changed as these environments changed.  It was a really interesting talk.  It was fantastic for the kids too… 

There were a lot of caves in this particular area, most with art of some kind.  Here are some people getting their groove on… 

This guy is an evil spirit who eats women after beating them with a yam… true story…. 

Our visit ended with a climb to the top of Nourlangie Rock for an awesome view over the Anbangbang Billabong (clear patch just to the left of Dave’s head), the nearby caves and in the distance, Arnhem Land. 

We drove back into Jabiru exhausted… this heat is so draining… While we were driving around looking for the shopping centre we found the local school.  There were about twenty trees out the front of the school that were absolutely jam-packed with bats.  The noise was horrendous!  Every tree looked like this