Category: 2019 Feast of Festivals

Arnhem Land Adventure – Cobourg Peninsula/West Arnhem Land

Posted on by patevans

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 abound
Viewing 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.

Exploring Katherine Gorge, Bitter Springs and Darwin in the Northern Territory

Posted on by patevans

In this blog we head up through the centre of the Northern Territory along the Stuart Highway with stops at two iconic locations and five nights in Darwin before heading to Jabiru.

The route for this blog from Bitter Springs to Jabiru

Although we were heading for Bitter Springs we decided to check out Mataranka Thermal Springs and caravan park on the way.  It looked ok but we prefer the springs at Bitter Springs.

The thermal springs at Mataranka. Smaller pools and a bit more manicured than the ones at Bitter Springs.

We had three nights booked in the caravan park next to Bitter Springs thermal pool and we thought it would be  three days of relaxation.  We made a few visits to the thermal pools and again enjoyed floating along the pool  on our noodles but somehow we managed to find lots of jobs to do when we were there.  These included washing clothes, repairing the van and washing the van in their free car wash bay.  Couldn’t resist doing a free van wash, as it was covered with red dust.  Also a lot of time was spent stressing when we completely lost our total blog from the web.  Fortunately our friend, Kevin, managed to retrieve it for us.

Our lovely, private bush camping spot in the caravan park 10 minutes walk from Bitter Springs

It took about 10-15 minutes to float along this stream through this tropical bushland.

The springs are very popular so when there were only a few people there, it was very pleasant.

Dick often avoids the swimming but because the springs were about 34C, he enjoyed it; and that is a blue noodle he is floating on.

After leaving Bitter Springs we visited the town of Katherine to fill with water and stock up at Woolworths, our favorite grocery store,  Its then only a 30 km drive out to Nitmiluk Gorge (aka Katherine Gorge) which is owned by the Jawoyn people.  The Nitmiluk National Park is managed under a 99 year lease by the Northern Territory Parks & Wildlife Commission in association with Jawoyn people, culture and traditions.  The words ‘Sharing Our Country’ feature on the Jawoyn Association logo and sum up their attitude to Nitmiluk.

This statute of a stockman greets you as you enter Katherine from the south, and it celebrates early settlers to the region.

Two years ago we did a helicopter flight over the 13 gorges in the park.  This time we wanted to explore the park on foot and on the water.  We settled into the campground, not our favorite as it was very crowded, and planned our stay as there were lots of walks along the gorges to chose from (ranging from 1.8 km to 39 km).

An initial view of the first gorge.

Our campsite in the campground, taken before it got super crowded. We were there on a NT long weekend.

Our first walk was the 5km lookout walk at sunset and it gave us (and lots of others) beautiful views of the gorge and the sunset colors.

Looking down into the first gorge as the sun goes down.

We had to walk down from the lookout in the near darkness but it was worth it to see the colors change over the gorge.

To start our big day of walking we did the 8 km walk to Pat’s Lookout (we had to really).  Lucky my name wasn’t Lily, as that was a 20 km walk!  A beautiful sunny 32C day, so it was a pleasant outing and we met nice people to chat to along the way.

Some of the walk was tropical before we got to the tops of the gorge cliffs

We made it to Pat’s Lookout

This was the view from my lookout. Notice the cruise boat down below

A nice spot to have lunch!

I took a photo of the sign just to show I hadn’t made up the name!

We gave ourselves a couple of relaxing hours out of the sun before doing a late afternoon two hour, two gorge cruise.  This seemed a good way to get the most out of our Nitmiluk experience, and it gave us another view and appreciation of the gorges and their aboriginal history (our guide was aboriginal).  We finished off our day listening to live music while sitting with our feet in the pool.  After over 21,000 steps in the heat, my feet enjoyed that.

Cruising through the first gorge

Up close to the beautiful sides of the gorge

This was the crossing we walked along to get to the second gorge where we boarded another boat to go through the second gorge

Spot the croc, on the rock. We saw quite a few freshwater crocs on this cruise.

This may have been Pat’s Lookout from the water.

Coming back through the gorge as the sun was going down.

Another view of the crossing between the gorges in the late afternoon sun.

Next stop for us was Darwin and our target for the day was the Sunday Sunset Mindel Markets, so we made an early start (leaving anywhere before 8am is an early start for us).  Darwin was a good place to stock up and get ready for our three week tour in Arnhem Land.  We have a favorite caravan park and quite enjoy spending time in Darwin.  The markets were good, lots of clothes etc and impressive food options. We also enjoy catching up with Lyn and Graham when we are there.

Mindl Beach in Darwin

At sunset all the people leave the markets and walk to the beach to enjoy a stunning Darwin sunset.

Dinner at the Sailing Club with Lyn and Graham and Judy and John. Lyn & Graham always take us to nice places with great sunsets.

Our five days in Darwin passed very quickly and without trying too hard we managed to support the local community with multiple purchases including a computer, a camera and swimmers as well as fun purchases like tyres, shovel, air filter and a $100 machine to deter insects.  Not to forget the endless washing, filling with water and dumping, so all was ready for 20 days in Arnhem Land. We drove to Jabiru, the one town in Kakadu National Park. As we’d been there before we gave ourselves a relaxing afternoon before officially starting our Arnhem Land tour that evening.