This next stage of the trip continues in West Arnhem Land and then goes out of Arnhem Land to get us back to the main road to take us into East Arnhem Land and the second part of our adventure; in other words from Wiligi Outstation to Nhulunbuy.
This is the journey covered in this post.
Our second stop in West Arnhem Land was at Wiligi Outstation. Another beautiful, private campsite on the beach. This time we had our own island to explore.
On this drive to Wiligi we moved up from last in line to first behind the guide..This was our campsite on the beach and behind us in the photo is Copeland Island, a small deserted island about 1 km away from our beachIn the morning Neill captained a small runabout boat to take us over to explore the island. A bit of a change as he used to be a ship’s captain in the Australian navy.Dick, Denise and I hiked through grass up to our armpits, as we climbed to the highest point on the island.Although the going was a bit rough, the panoramic views from the top were worth it.Another view of the island from our journey back to camp.Denise and I enjoying the beautiful day on the water.The waterside view of our camp.More beautiful sunsets – and a nice place to have our daily briefing sessions.
We had a relaxing couple of days at Wiligi. Dick had time to do some maintenance on the sink and the stove as the rough roads were taking their toll. The evening fires, amazing sunsets, good conversations and card games made for a pleasant stop. All seemed well, until we did the daily ‘under-bonnet check’ before leaving.
This was becoming a familiar site, as we had problems with a broken battery clamp. Thankfully our bush mechanics kept us going and we were able to leave almost on time, as we had a big day ahead of us.
We were leaving West Arnhem Land and driving via Katherine before we re-entered East Arnhem Land. On the drive we saw water buffalo, wallabies and horses. Our first stop was at Oenpelli, aka Gunbalanya, an aboriginal community about 60 km from Jabiru and 16 kms from the infamous Cahills Crossing. The area is known for its rock art and bark art, and many people just go there to see the art sites and art centre (injalak Arts). Unfortunately the art centre was closed when we arrived.
These women were weaving outside the Art Centre which was closed the day we visited. They did have some things for sale, like woven drop earrings, but it didn’t seem easy to organize a purchase. Thats our group watching on.This man was doing bark painting beside the Art Centre. The women weavers told us the men had it easy as all the did was paint, whereas the women had to harvest the pandamus leaves, dye them and then weave the baskets, earrings etc.The brilliant green wetlands and spectacular escarpments are a key feature around Oenpelli.
After we left Oenpelli we had an uneventful trip back across Cahills Crossing and on to Jabiru, where we had to get fuel, air up the tyres, get groceries and eat lunch in an hour. Needless to say we struggled with the time pressure.
We saw lots of fires along the roadside throughout our trip. These ones were particularly close to the road. All appear to be part of traditional aboriginal land management practices.This gif gives more of a sense of what it felt like driving along.
Our final stop of the day was a hard to find place at the side of the highway, where we walked in a bit and saw some striking granite carvings done by Mitsuaki Tanabe, a Japanese sculptor who aimed to draw public attention to the need for conservation of wild rice as a genetic resource; and the co-existence of human life and wild life. It continues to amaze me what interesting things we see in the middle of nowhere!
A close up of the carving, which was inn bushland and surrounded by other carvings on the rocks.This gives more perspective on the length of the granite carving (82 meters).
Our camp for the night was the Corroboree Park Tavern and campground, which meant flush toilets, showers, air con and a pub meal in a typical Northern Territory roadhouse. It was also very close to our morning Jumping Crocodile cruise on the Adelaide River.
We were in a smallish boat on the Adelaide River and it didn’t take long for the guide to find a croc ready to jump for his breakfast!This gif should show the croc jumping up for the fresh eat. Maybe this is easier than catching their own and the boats visit a few times every day.All the crocs had names and seemed well known to the guide. Even the little ones were scary.The largest crocs were 6 m long and quite scary as they were so close to the boat. If we needed any convincing to be careful and croc-wary this cruise did the trick.The guides threw meat up in the air for the birds, and if they flew too close to the water, the crocs were waiting for them.After the drama of the croc cruise, we took a scenic shortcut to Katherine and passed by this Leaning Tree Lagoon with lots of birds and water.
The time in Katherine was for restocking, but we had another issue to attend to. We’d noticed a gas leak in the van so needed time for Dick to take the stove apart. He found nothing there but the gas smell was bad and getting worse. Again we were rescued by Neill, our practical guide. He agreed the stove was fine and then asked if there were any other gas services in the van, which led us to the culprit, the hot water heater. Once we turned that off, all was ok again and who needs hot water anyway. Could have been worse!
The next day we did our fuel, water, grocery, mail stop in Katherine before we headed back into West Arnhem Land, via the Central Arnhem Highway. It was 729 kms to Nhulunbuy so we had one stop along the way at Mainoru Store, a roadhouse and campground. That meant they had fuel, toilets and a restaurant where we all ate dinner together. Funny how Neill managed to find interesting spots to visit wherever we stopped. This creek walk from the campground was delightful.
Paul took advantage of any opportunity to put in his line, even in this lovely creek next to our camp.Dinner for 18 at the Mainoru Store roadhouse.This lookout was called ‘Jurassic Park’ and gives a good view of lots of Arnhem Land.
Another long day of driving (dry season access only) got us to Nhulunbuy, our home base for the next week, and the main service centre on the Gove Peninsula. The town, which is home to 4000 people, was built by Nabalco to service its bauxite mine.
Group photo near an impressive termite mound.Yes, the termite mounds were BIG in the NT!One of our guys broke all the rules of common sense by wading across this rather large water crossing in known crocodile country. Thats the guide standing on the rhs looking a bit worried. He’s only holding a hand held cb, not a gun.Before the Cape Arnhem Road was upgraded in 2014, this water crossing was part of the main road. I drove this water crossing so was pleased with myself for getting through, although I did have someone giving me directions on where to cross.We saw lots of road trains like this, and when they passed us from either direction, we just pulled way over and stopped.More fires and at times we just drove into black smoke across the road
In Nhulunbuy we settled comfortably into the camping area of the Walkabout Lodge. Little did we know that the most exciting part of our adventure was about to begin………
I had been waiting for a sign to help us decide where to go this winter so when I heard friends’ positive comments about Arnhem Land, I felt that was my sign. A new place, not that well known, remote and rugged and we could do it in a group. We joined a 20 day, 4WD tagalong tour of Arnhem Land, with Great Divide Tours.
Arnhem Land is known as one of the last pristine areas in the world and we feel quite privileged that we got to go there. It is 91,000 square kilometers of unspoilt wilderness in the middle of Australia’s north coast, bordered by Kakadu National Park, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Arnhem Land is the dark green area on this map. Its roughly the size of Iceland and bigger than Hungary, Portugal or Austria. The population is approximately 16,000, with 12,000 being Aboriginal, Yolngu people, the traditional owners of the land.
Our tour started with a gathering in Jabiru, the town in Kakadu NP, where we had a 40 minute briefing from our guide, Neill, and got to meet our fellow travellers (or our new friends). There were 18 of us travelling in our own 8 vehicles. My conclusion that night was “it seems a nice group of people and a good guide”. As it turns out – it was a fabulous group of people and BEST GUIDE EVER!!!
We all had dinner together and started the process of getting to know each other.
Our first convoy experience started at 8am (5:15 alarm for us) and we were ‘Charlie’, the last in the line. That meant that we had to respond to all CB calls acknowledging that we’d heard every call throughout the day and we had to advise when someone came up behind us and wanted to pass.
I was quite worried about crossing the infamous Cahills Crossing, as stories abound of people regularly getting taken by crocs there, or dozens of vehicles being swept off the crossing into the croc-infested waters annually.
It could have looked like this….. photo from an ABC news report 18 Sept 2019
But instead it looked like this. Its all about judging the tide and crossing on low tide, and maybe being lucky!
This was us driving across – we saw a croc and a jabiru (bird) in the water.
This jabiru didn’t seem to be worried about taking his chances with the crocs on the crossing.
Once we settled in we both felt excited like two kids on a school excursion! Things were going well – morning tea stops, ‘Sturt stops’ (named after the Sturt Desert Pea, with pee being the operative word) where we all strategically stop far enough away as to not see the other cars, and a lunch stop as we made our way up the Cobourg Peninsula and entered the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park.
Our first morning tea stop along the road. Generally there was no other traffic around.Happy smiles on our first day of the trip. This is the Northern Territory’s first flora and fauna protection reserve.This was our guide, Neill, giving us a briefing as we entered the park. The words on the sign about safari hunting and personal safety are interesting!The wood gathering stop in preparation for getting to our campspot. At this stop someone noticed water leaking out under our van.When Dick was fixing the water leak he needed help to hold something in place, so I was conscripted. A group of the guys stood around watching and someone wondered if we were trying out a new ‘position’!
Our private camp was near Smiths Point, right on the water with amazing sunsets every night. After we cooked our own dinners, we had a self-intro session around the fire.
This is the group watching the first sunset of our trip.And this is the first of many amazing sunsets we enjoyed on our own private bit of the coast.
The region is reputed to offer some of the best fishing in the world, so we signed up for a half day afternoon fishing charter. The morning group got great fish which we all ate bbq’d for dinner but our afternoon outing was postponed due to rough seas (very lucky call for me as I was a bit worried about seasickness). Instead we did a scenic coastal drive and visited a wetlands, which wasn’t so wet due to the dry conditions. The Cobourg Peninsula does have the world’s first wetland of international importance.
Beautiful deserted beaches aboundViewing a historic navigational day beacon at Smiths Point.This sign was for real! We did not go closer than 2 meters from the water, but this sign suggests they could be anywhere.Enjoying a beautiful, sunny coastline.Not enjoying having to get out and check if we can fit under the overhanging branches. The track was too narrow for us, we were slow and at one stage we had to turn around, so we held people up a bit.
Another day’s excursion took us to the museum and cultural centre where we learned about the Aboriginal, Macassan and European histories of the area. The desolute ruins of Britain’s third attempt to settle the north, Victoria Settlement (1838-1849), can still be seen on this Peninsula. Interesting that the Macassans, from Indonesia, first came a century (or more) before the British and were regular visitors until 1906. They collected sea slugs (trepang) and turtle shells for Asian markets and traded pottery, fabrics, steel blades, and foodstuffs etc. with the Aboriginal people.
Had a nice beach walk along from our private campspot, always keeping one eye on the sea.Finished up the day with more free bbq’d fish and another stunning sunset. The two guys fishing here didn’t do so well along the shore.
Then it was our turn to FISH! Six of us were 8-10 kms out in a 6.5 m boat in the Arafura Sea. In the first five minutes our friends Jan and Paul each caught a large jewfish.
Jan with her catch. She is an experienced fisher and was very helpful to a novice like me.
With lots of assistance and guidance from Jan and Paul I did manage to catch about six fish, which all got thrown back. Needless to say we had fish again for dinner, third night in a row and more fish than I had ever eaten in a 3 day period.
Here’s my first fish ever caught. I hadn’t realized that it was quite hard work reeling it in.I also caught a little shark which had very rough skin. I was happy as I caught fish and survived the boat trip without getting seasick!
We had an evening talk from Ranger Allan who has been there since 1985. Getting insight from local people was a great benefit of being on the tour. Our first stop in the Cobourg Peninsula was a great introduction to Arnhem Land and to our group.
