Day 24 –Cooinda (Kakadu) to Katherine

A wonderful start to the day – up early by 6.00am, in the car by 6.20am and at the Yellow Waters cruises boat ramp by 6.30am. That’s one of the great advantages of staying right at the Cooinda Resort Lodge (Gagudju Lodge Cooinda), it is only 2km away from where the boat cruise begins. It is such a beautiful setting, and really worth staying at if you are in the area.

The boat ramping area has really been upgraded since we are here last. Three boats full of people left at the same time as us this morning. Not that we saw them at all, as the wetlands are so vast.

 

Yellow Waters (named for its thousands of flowering yellow water lilies) is part of the South Alligator River where it opens out onto vast floodplains creating a sea of shallow freshwater. It was a beautiful cool, misty morning – a wonderful time of the day up here before the heat starts to wear you down.

 

We were absolutely astounded at the amount of wildlife we encountered. From the brilliant blue Azure Kingfisher with his copper breast, darting from the trees into the water to catch insects, to the many, many lazy looking large crocodiles gliding effortlessly through the water or sunning themselves on the bank. The very pretty Forest Kingfisher with its white breast, and stunning blue wings was also everywhere. (you may need to click on the pics below to spot the birds).

 

Of course one of the main attractions is the salt water crocodile, of which we spotted many, either sunning themselves on the banks, or gliding effortlessly through the water looking for fish (or anything they can pull in from the waters edge) for breakfast. The males can grow up to 7 metres, with the females not usually bigger than 4m. The guide was explaining how to tell how long the crocs had been here in the billabong (from the sea), by the color of their skin – the darker they are, the longer they have been here as the algae builds up and stains their skin. We were all warned several times not to put any body part out of the boat, as they can jump out of the water to almost their own length.

 

 

We were really pleased to see the long red-legged Jabiru birds, after which the main town of the Kakadu National Park takes its name, and the quick little Jacana birds strutting along from the top of one lily pad to another like they were stepping stones. These birds are also called “Jesus birds” as they appear to be walking across the water.

 

We saw so much wildlife - the huge white bellied sea eagles that dive down from a great height right in front of us, and pull a huge fish from the water to take back to the nest in their tree closeby. The rare graceful Grey Herons, and the flocks of noisy Magpie Geese (so named because of their black and white colourings). The vivid Blue Water hens and many types of Terns.

 

As we glide past the overhanging trees we spot the immense grey Water Buffalo graze in the long aptly named buffalo grass at the edge of the billabong (often with a large white Cattle Egret perched on their backs).

There are the varied colored brumbies (wild horses), and wild cattle also grazing on the lush grasses. We see the huge brown Whistling Kites, Pelicans, Ibis and Doves cooing from the trees. As well as the Brown Whistling Ducks, and the huge Darters (members of the shag family) sitting high on the dead trees with their wings outstretched to dry them off.

 

Everywhere we look the river is teeming with wildlife. There are long stretches of large pink lotus lilies, as well as white, yellow, and white and pink water lilies.

 

It is now nearing the end of the Dry Season (May to October), so the billabongs are starting to dry up. Amazingly some of the fish and water creatures such as turtles can live down between the cracks in the mud and survive quite happily until the rains come (Wet Season). And when they come, they come! Up to ½ inch of rain can fall in 10 minutes here!

So after an awesome 2 hour boat cruise, we headed back to the lodge bistro, and sat outside eating a huge cooked breakfast. This is always included in the early morning cruise. So worth it!

Then it was a quick walk back to the van, packed it up in 20 minutes (getting expert at this now), and we headed off back out to the Stuart Highway, and down to Katherine where we are staying again tonight (back in the delightful Low Level Big 4 caravan park). The pool here is great, so after a swim, and catching up on some paperwork (we are in the middle of building our new house, so there are always phone calls to make, and emails to answer), it was time to cook our bbq tea, and get some rest before tomorrows adventure.