Day 16 - Good Part
Up bright and early and down to the "touristy" part of the park
No. I didn't get a ticket. The safety rails round the edge of the boat weren't high enough for my liking.
Mind you there was plenty of other croc. food available.
So I went walking in the wetlands instead . . . much safer.
Then on to the next attraction.
OK That's not too bad. I've walked around Kings Canyon.
Path starts like this
and then keeps on going and gets steeper. There are NO flat spots for all 1.6km!
Mind you there are some nice views at the top.
This is 9am and 99% humidity over the wetlands.
Coming down is easier. Just slip once and you'll be down in no time at all.
Oh for a Zimmer frame.
Then on to the aboriginal rock art.
There is some nice country here as well. It's in the base of the hills etc. from the previous picture. There is a brick paved pathway for about 2km with short excursions for each site or you can walk through the hills from site to site through places like this . . . much nicer . . . no Japanese tour guides saying "Keep to the path."
You'd have to carbon date some of this stuff while I was there to get me to believe it wasn't done by a couple of kids who stole a box of chalk but then it doesn't say "ancient" anywhere does it?
Day 16 - Other Part
I don't think I have this touring thing quite worked out. At least in this part of the world anyway. I don't mind being out in the heat and humidity where you have to drink litres per hour until you feel nauseous and sweat litres per hour but it doesn't evaporate so you don't get cool and it trickles down into your eyes all the time and stings and drops onto your glasses where it creates visual distortions so you try and step over or around or on a rock which isn't there and there is no breeze and there are lots of flys as long as there are interesting things to see but to just sit around and "relax" . . . you have to be kidding me.
When you get to Jabiru where you turn left and start to work your way back to Darwin there are many fewer things to see along the road and the "creek walks" have less attraction. I've seen enough crocodile warning signs that I can't get excited by a mudhole with a sign anymore.
In this part of the world there are no simple little places to spend some idle time and I've already commented on the weather so you tend to keep moving and lo and behold there is the Stuart Highway and a sign saying Darwin 35 km. For reasons entirely unexplainable by me I actually turn toward it! I get all the way into downtown Darwin before it occurs to me that the only thing I can think of that I would like to see here, at the moment, is the aviation museum but it's Sunday and 5pm and I really should stop.
A call into a couple of parks reveals that a single person site is on average $25-30 per night. It seems a bit excessive so I decide to buy a meal and then head on out of Darwin toward Litchfield Park which everyone assures me is nicer than Kakadu. I've made this dumb decision a couple of times now and should know better. For any sort of stress minimization technique to work while travelling like this you need to be stopped and camped by about 4pm. The only consolation is that there is a particularly nice sunset, and then I kick myself that I should be somewhere nice with a tripod and some time instead of pulling to the side of the road and taking a quick shot from the window of the truck.
I tell myself I'm going to pull into the first reasonable parking bay I can find and set up camp.
Finally I get control of myself in a place called Bachelor which is the gateway town to Litchfield and pull into the first campground. "$30 per person per night thank you."
I don't care. I plug in the air conditioner and just sit until I cool off mentally and physically.
A good nights sleep will help I'm sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment