Day 82 (Kakadu)

Let the Oz Adventure begin in earnest now...we're back on the bus (another different one, supplied by Adventure Tours) and starting our route down from the Top End through the Red Centre and then across to Sydney. In eleven days time we'll be pulling up at the Opera House..which is really hard to believe.

We met our driver and guide for our Oz travel – a guy called Wombat, a Tazzie native who's on his 6th year of touring with Adventure Tours. Una struggled to figure out who he reminded her of, but it came to me almost as soon as I met him...he's like a younger version of my dad. Resembles him a lot in appearance and manner which is freaky! He's got a jam packed schedule for us which means we'll get to see a whole lot of Oz before we even make it to Sydney. That's ace and will help me in my aim to cover as much ground as possible in my time in Australia. It's great to see how packed an itinerary Adventure Tours have for us especially since Una and I have booked another one of their routes from Broome – Perth (10 day road trip in a 24 seater bus) starting a week after we finish up with OzBUS....Nice ;)

We bade farewell to our hostel wondering what the campsite was going to be like that night in Kakadu. I had visions of a mouldy old tent that you'd see in the movies when scouts go camping...how wrong I was! We were staying at the Kakadu Lodge in pre-erected tents with roll-mats already provided (why am I still carrying mine..I've used it a grand total of twice now!). There was a big mess hall for cooking and eating and an excellent shower and toilet block...not exactly camping...more like luxury camping but I'm not complaining ;)

Before we got to the campsite we had a few stops on the drive. First port of call was to see the Jumping Crocodiles which I had seen advertised as a tour from Darwin in the hostel and thought it looked quite interesting. When we got to the site, Wombat went into the info centre and returned with a snake that we were allowed to hold – I wanted to, but couldn't bring myself to do it..I did touch it and rub it's skin but it felt too weird and having seen it wrap itself quite tightly around Mel's neck I was having none of it.

I did sign up for the crocodile cruise where they took us out on the river on a pretty sizeable boat for an hour or so and found some saltwater crocodiles to feed. We pulled up along side the crocs and then Sissy the feeding lady plopped a big chunk of meat into the water and splashed it about a bit to attract the croc to it. Then when the croc had it in sight and came over to snap at it, the chunk of meat was pulled back up from the water at speed and the croc launched itself out of the water to try get it. She got them to jump once or twice before letting them take the chunk of meat. Pretty awesome sight..especially when two crocs tried to go for the same bit of meat and started fighting right in front of me..I of course was in too much shock to get a picture of it, but it was awesome! On the ride back to the port, they fed some of the birds that were flying around us. She then threw a chunk of meat the same size as they'd used for the crocs into the air and the biggest bird I've ever seen swooped from nowhere and grabbed it from mid-air..whooshhh! She they tossed out small cubes of meat that smaller birds flew in to grab – every piece of meat ended up with a bird, not one of them fell through to the water.

After the fun and games with the crocs we moved on to meet some local Aboriginals - Graham and his mob. They performed the 'Welcome to Country' ceremony for us which involved one of the men from the mob (Stephen) getting water from the billabong, sucking it into his mouth from a piece of wood and then spitting it out onto each of our foreheads. It was a bit weird to have someone spit on my while I stood there willing to take it, but it was pretty cool to take part in the ceremony and a nice way to start off our journey. After the ceremony he took us on a bush walk showing us the plants that they use for tools and handicrafts. He also showed us a bush cooker before introducing us to some of his family who gave us an impromptu didgeridoo show. They explained how in order to find the right piece of wood for the instrument they go walkabout and bang random trees that look like they'd make a good one to check how hollow it has been made by the termites in the area. They also explained how they go about finishing it off and the significance of the colours and decorations used to dress it up. We got to have a go...I was actually reasonably ok. I'd need to work on my rhythmic breathing if I wanted to make a career of it though. Got the sound right but couldn't get it to continue on like they do, there's a definite trick to it :) From there we moved on to trying our hand a spear throwing, again something I did quite well and it was the general consensus in the splinter group that should we need to get some bushtucker I'd be the spear thrower..not sure that'd be a great idea as I had no aim whatsoever, all's I could do was launch it nicely and get it to travel quite far (much like my arm in softball ;P get that in there before any of you guys comment!). Next up we tried our hand at making rope for the weaving projects that Graham's daughters and other female family members are working on. It was tough to try get the fibre from the plant..in the end I had to take some from the girls because I couldn't manage it. My rope did turn out pretty good though and wasn't far off the quality of the one the girls gave me as a souvenir :)

Our first exposure to Aboriginal culture was a great one, I really enjoyed the time we spent talking to them and hearing what they had to say. The next step was Ubirr to see some rock art and watch the sunset over the floodplains. This was the perfect end to a wonderful day. The rockart at Ubirr was really cool, clambering over big rock formations to climb up to the viewing point for sunset was ace. When we were up there looking out over the land Wombat told us a bit more about Bill Neijdie an aboriginal leader who along with his kin have leased Kakadu to the Australian Government for all to share. The words he paraphrased from Bill were quite touching and made me feel a really strong connection to the place...

“Earth... Like your father or brother of mother, because you born from earth, you got to come back to Earth. When you dead... That's your bone, your blood. It's in this Earth.”

This highlights the Aboriginal belief that people belong to their land. The soul or a person is born from the land and returns to it after death. Bill made the sacrifice to break from tradition and allow his name and image be used after his death. In his culture his name and image shouldn't be used for a few years after his death as in doing so he will be distracted from his path back to his birthplace, but people say he's such a strong character and great guy that he'll make it back regardless :)

So far Australia is surpassing my expectations so I can't wait to see what else there is to come!!