Annual OZ Trip

[rosslr]

First time back in a place with internet access. Therefore, I will do a series of updated day by day of the last week

NYINYIKAY TO JABIRU – 197NM

The wind hadn’t let up and we had no reception to get an accurate forecast. On the ground the windsock was horizontal and there were passing showers of rain. We sat and waited and finally a MAF Airvan came in and he told the weather would get better the further we went west. We were heading for Jabiru, the only town in the world famous Kakadu national park. To get there we needed to cross some water, fly across remote, croc infested lowlands and then cross over the Kakadu escarpment before descending into Jabiru. The cloud base was about 1200ft when we left but we had good definition of the coastline and an added bonus is that there are a lot of small airstrips in this area as it is dotted with Indigenous Homelands communities. It turned out well and the weather did improve as we went west, finally allowing us to climb to 4500ft over the escarpment and into clear air – much to Gayle’s joy! The only downside was the smoke from the fire management program – they burn huge areas each dry season up this way.

We decided to spend a day n Kakadu park and managed to hire a car from some backpackers for the day (no hire companies). Kakadu is in the very nth part of Australia (you will notice East Timor on the map to the Nth). There are 2 seasons here - wet and dry. In the wet the huge amount of rain drains off the escarpment via spectacular waterfalls and floods the plains all around - the result is a vast area teaming with wildlife. The Aboriginal people have thrived in this area and there is a lot of rock art documenting there 60,000yrs of successful occupation of the area. They also traded with their Asian neighbors to the north.

This is a wonderful part of Australia and one to put on the list of any Australian visit!