Kununurra to Darwin with a side trip to Kakadu
Day 50 - Wednesday, 19 May 2010
We made it into Kununurra, and decided to try one more time to see if we could get a flight over the Bungle Bungles from Kununurra. Once again, we paid, this time quite a bit more, as Kununurra is quite a way from the Bungle Bungles. Once again, we were told we would be contacted if the flight was called off, and that we would be picked up from our motel at 8.15am today. Well, once again the weather was really bad and it was called off, so, seeing as we were packed and ready to go, we left our lovely motel, Kununurra Lakeside Resort, and started early on the road, out of Western Australia and into the Northern Territory, hopefully getting to Katherine tonight.
It's a really lovely drive, through fantastic outbreaks of incredibly coloured rock.
Lovely patches of wild flowers every now and then. We stopped for a quick lunch at Victoria River Roadhouse, which has a big, permanent painted sign, "Under new management", but the word "management" had been covered by the word "wife". It looks across the highway at one of the lovely coloured mountains. A short time after leaving the roadhouse, we came around a corner and suddenly there was a huge river, flowing like mad, between the mountains. It was actually the Victoria River.
Up until then all the creeks and rivers we had crossed had, at most, little puddles of water, which we had assumed was from the rain that had been falling since we had left Broome.
As we got closer to Katherine, we noticed yet another type of flowering bush, which was covered in lovely pale purple flowers.
There was another type with a similar flower, but cream coloured.
We've also noticed how many boab trees there have been all across the top end, so finally stopped and took a few photos of these really magnificent trees.
Arrived finally, quite late, in Katherine. Tried to get into a Best Western Hotel, and the receptionist recommended we try Springvale Homestead, which turned out to be an historic old farm which has been turned into a caravan park/motel. Bernard went in and booked us in for only $65 for the night, which goes to prove you get what you pay for. The room turned out to be a demountable metal, little room. Very cramped, with a very noisy air con. unit, very cramped bathroom/toilet, and my bed was hard on one side and very soft on the other. Not a good night.
- J
Day 51 - Thursday, 20 May 2010
Not unexpectedly we were awake fairly early today. Apart from the uncomfortable room, we have also lost 90 minutes in time. So, very thankfully, we left the quite nice town of Katherine, and headed north to Darwin.
More quite lovely bushland on the way. There were also a lot of small palms, some of which had been burnt in bush fires, and were re-sprouting with lovely pale green foliage.
While we were driving, we decided to try and book into a trip to Kakadu, and also to see about getting on The Ghan with our car. So B. got onto his mighty iPhone and we found out that we had to get to a Flight Centre, who would organize the lot for us. We ended up at Palmerston Flight Centre, where a very nice young lady spent the next 2 and a half hours organizing our next 8 days - and helping us to spend about $14,000!
So, tomorrow morning, at 6am we get picked up from yet another very lovely motel, the Darwin Airport Resort (the only one the girl at Flight Centre could get us into), to spend the day going to Kakadu, lunch, a plane flight over Kakadu (we hope to actually do it this time), then more touristy things, then back to Darwin. The next day, we have to have the car at the railway station by 7am to go on The Ghan to Alice Springs. So, early night tonight.
- J
Day 52 - Friday, 21 May 2010
We had the BEST day! Picked up by a shuttle bus, taken to the transit centre, where we got on a big bus with a very nice bus driver who chatted just about the whole day. I reckon he must have been exhausted by the end of the day. I know I was!
We drove for about 175km, stopped at Nourlangie Rock, where I sat and waited while the fit people, including B. walked out to some Aboriginal rock art paintings.
Then we went on to Yellow Waters to a drop-off point where we walked out along a walkway to a large motorised punt, which took us on an hour-and-a-half boat ride, up the Alligator River, looking for crocodiles. Absolutely lovely waterlilies everywhere and terrific birdlife.
We saw 3 crocodiles. The largest, a 4 metre long, dominant male for the area, came right up beside our boat.
After the boat-ride, we were taken back to have a very nice serve-yourself lunch, then, when the rest of the busload went on a drive, B. and I were taken to the local airport. As we had been weighed earlier, we were squeezed into a lovely little 8 seater plane with just the pilot (a very nice young bloke), and up we went. We spent about an hour flying out over Kakadu and the mountains around. Over 3 different waterfalls.
Absolutely breath-taking!! Just like being Biggles!!! The takeoff and landing make you hold your breath.
After coming back down to earth, we got back on the shuttle, and met up with another, much more modern bus for the trip back to Darwin, into an absolutely lovely sunset. We even finally saw a mob of kangaroos on the side of the road. All together, a terrific, exhausting, wonderful day!
- J
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