Bush Tucker

Just in case you weren't clear on the crocodile issue, this was posted not too far past the "Welcome to Kakadu National Park" signs. I also put this image here because it is fairly representative of the roadside scenery. Kakadu itself is an enormous park; some 80 miles wide and 100+ miles long, but most of the Top End looks like this... lots of trees, no sign of humans beyond the road itself.






We stopped at the Mamukala wetlands for a nice late afternoon walk.




An absolutely charming Red-Winged Parrot...




and our second Yellow-Spotted Monitor.




What could be better in the land of crocodiles than a stay in a crocodile shaped hotel? Our room was near the right hind leg (which housed a staircase up to the second level), the restaurant and lobby were in the head, and the pool in its belly. This is a Holiday Inn, believe it or not, and it was very comfortable.

Note the "You are Here" line pointing at the crocodile's mouth.




Australians are (justifiably) proud of the vast array of interesting fruits, herbs, tasty animals, etc. that are native to continent, and it has become popular to use bush tucker (as this stuff is collectively called) in restaurant food. This is our bush tucker appetizer at the hotel:

lemon myrtle capsicum (green or red pepper) on bruchetta topped with feta
wattleseed artichoke
bush tomato relish w/ toasted flatbread
marinated mushrooms with goat cheese
leek tartlet with Quandong
pear and Kakadu plum (which are small, green, tart, and really nothing like actual plums) rocket (arugula) salad
kalamata olives with chilli jam

Jumpy the Croc says G'day!

We stopped here, at one of the river cruise establishments along the Adelaide River, to have a bite to eat. This is one of those places where they hang a chicken carcass or some other tasty treat over the side of the boat and a gigantic semi-tame croc will jump up for your amusement. We passed on the cruise, knowing we'd see them in a more natural state in Kakadu, but the fiberglass version was pretty cool.




Darrin shows off his veggie salad sandwich. "Salad" in this context refers to the lettuce, tomato, and sometimes cucumber present in a sandwich. So, a "chicken salad sandwich" is not the mayonnaise concoction we are used to in the States, but rather lean chicken breast with lettuce and tomato on buttered bread. A veggie salad sandwich is pretty much just the lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers on buttered bread. I think this one had some beets and carrots, too.




This place was awesome... it had two giant fake crocodiles!

Fogg Dam

Continuing on toward Kakadu National Park, we stopped at Fogg Dam for some more birdwatching. The dam wall is a kilometer long, and was built as part of a failed experiment in growing rice. Now its a haven for birds and a nice place for a walk. There were several nature trails and boardwalks into the forests surrounding the marsh.




Its a good thing you can't see all the mosquitos buzzing about, or smell the incredibly potent "natural" repellent I am sporting.







The birdwatching was pretty good here, and we saw a flock of these beautiful Crimson Finches.




Mixed in amongst the various herons and egrets are some Royal Spoonbills, so named for fairly obvious reasons. This flock of birds was making the most amazing sound; mooing like a herd of cattle.




This is the view from the two-story observation deck, looking out across the vast marsh.

Rainbow Pitta

We stopped here at Howard Springs Nature Park on our way out of Darwin, to do a little birdwatching. The spring-fed pool here is popular for swimming, and it was used as a recreation camp for soldiers during World War II.




Here is a pretty good sized Barramundi, seen from the dam along the pool, in its pre-burger form.




This little guy is a Rainbow Pitta. Birdwatching for me is a bit like hunting for treasure. Australia has some 770 species of birds and over three trips we've seen over 300 of them. Of course, some birds are harder to find than others, and the real prizes are the endemic rarities. Many of these harder to find birds require knowledge of local lore (and lots of luck) to find. Some of the suggestions for Gouldian Finches were along the lines of: drive 20km out of town on the highway until you come to an unmarked creek crossing... 100 yards past that turn on the dirt track, drive until you get to the old highway, park, walk diagonally across the old road to the creek, walk up the dry creekbed until you get to the third pool of standing water, and wait there at dawn until the birds show up. Which they probably won't.

We dipped (birdwatcher lingo for "totally missed out") on many of the guys I was looking for, but at least we finally saw a darn pitta. I had a chance to see them in Borneo, and again on our last trip to Australia, but they always eluded me. They are very shy, and despite their bright colors, hard to see in the dense rainforest. I had read, however, that this particular species of pitta was pretty much guaranteed if you went to Howard Springs, walked on the nature trail, and hung out at the bridge. Which we did, and sure enough, there he was, though he was sneaky and we got only the briefest look. We saw another one further down the trail, but again, he was around for only a few seconds and Darrin didn't see him at all. After an hour of this we decided to call it good and made a pit stop at the restrooms by the parking lot. As we were leaving I was literally in the middle of uttering "I'm sorry you didn't get a better look" to Darrin, when he said, "Isn't that one?" and pointed to this little guy, who was not 10 feet away from us, and very cooperative in allowing us to shoot his picture. This birdwatching-is-better-by-the-bathrooms so why'd-you-bother-going-on-that-hike scenario occured with some regularity on the trip.

Corroboree

We decided that evening to catch a corroboree (traditional Aboringinal dance and musical performance) at a resort across the bay that was recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. We stopped at this tiny fish and chip joint to grab "take-away" before catching the ferry.




The ferry ride was short... only about 20 minutes long. The passengers were either tourists heading for the corroboree, or Aborigines heading home. It was a sad truth that most of the Aborigines we saw during the three weeks we were there were either drinking or already drunk, no matter the time of day.




In America the word "resort" conjures up fluffy robes, room service, spa treatments, and so on, but in Australia, the term is used more loosely, and might just mean "has a pool". This turned out to be one of those places, and when the ferry dropped us off at the pier (behind me) there was no signage to let us know where to go. There was a road, and a dirt track that led some distance to a few low buildings of the corrugated metal and concrete block sort I have shown previously. We collectively decided those buildings must be the resort and headed down the path.

We were a little early so we finished up our dinner on the beach. I am eating a Greek salad, our second one in two days. They make 'em hearty down there, with 1 inch cubes of feta, 1/2 inch thick slices of cucumbers, whole olives, and tomatoes cut in quarters. They were always fresh and tasty though; a reliable staple for trip.

While we were on the beach, we witnessed a confrontation up at the resort between a white guy and an Aborigine that was a little alarming. White guy had the Aborigine down on his knees, yelling at him, and eventually walloped him on the side of the head. We figured out eventually that White guy was the owner of the resort, (also the manager of the dance group) and the Aborigine was being chastised for showing up drunk. I guess he encouraged the family and friends of the performers to come and enjoy the show, but they could only come on the property if they were sober. Later, as we headed into the resort, we had a rather surreal conversation with a staggeringly drunk Aboriginal woman who tried to convince me that her name was Michelle too, and that we were sisters.




This is the somewhat atmospheric bar and bistro there at the resort.



At last we get to the performance, which was actually pretty interesting. There were women, men, and children, who all performed different dances, and reenacted, pantomime-style, scenes from daily life, and to accompany them there were musicians playing the digeridoo and clap sticks. This particular dance was a buffalo hunt. Much of what the men did involved stomping hard on the sand, and we could feel the force of it travel through the ground.




There came the inevitable moment for audience participation, and these two gave it a good go.




We had the opportunity to meet the dancers afterward, who were all very happy and friendly, and take pictures. I like the guy next to Darrin giving the big thumbs-up.

Big City, part 2

So, I remind you that we are in the most populous area for more than a thousand miles in any direction ... and you can see how crowded the beaches are.





The interesting texture of the surface here is due to millions of tiny balls of sand that have been rolled up by little crabs while the tide is out.

Pooka: 1 Duckie: 0

This is (or was) Pooka's favorite new toy. At first she seemed charmed by its cute little beak and staring eyes. She would kiss it and solicit head scratchies from the duckie, but before long it became The Enemy, and brought out a malicious side we haven't seen before. The moment she saw or heard it, she would run as fast as her little legs would carry her so she could bite the living daylights out of it, or fling it across the bathroom. She seemed thrilled by the fact that it would cry out in agony each time she chomped on it (until she pulled out the squeaker). Then she began to methodically decapitate the poor thing... this morning she was at last successful.

Here are some action shots:







And here she is, the huntress standing tall and proud over her kill.

A day in the Big City.

The Northern Territory encompases about 1/6th the land of Australia, but only around 1% of its population. Half of those folks live in Darwin - maybe 100,000 people - which makes it the biggest city within a multi-day drive in any direction. Imagine a place twice the size of Texas, where the only big city is College Station.




On the morning of our second full day there, we walked from our hotel over to the Botanic Gardens and found this unusual silver palm with its black fruiting thingies.




Rainbow lorikeets are beautiful nectar-eating parrots that you can buy as pets over here, but are native to Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia and some of the nearby islands. They are common and show up in noisy groups wherever there are blooming trees. They can be hard to get a good look at, despite the crazy colors. Its difficult to see in this picture, but their heads are a rich blue-purple.




We next made a stop at Darwin National Park, where you can walk (or squish) right out into the mangroves. There were little mudskippers in the puddles and giant snails up in the trees.




We stopped for lunch at a place on the harbor called Buzz Cafe that serves modern Aussie food. This is the view from our table...




...and here is our lovely lunch. There was smoked salmon, cream cheese and pesto on crostini, and some kind of local fish (not barramundi!) with yoghurt raita, tabouli, and Indian flatbread chips. We followed that up with the best desert in the whole wide world... sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and ice cream. We had three versions of this on the trip and they were each indescribably wonderful.




This is a 3 foot long Yellow-Spotted Monitor. He was hanging out on the lawn between the parking lot and the beach, near the cafe. We watched him digging his lunch out of the grass... couldn't quite tell if it was eating worms or bugs but he was thoroughly engrossed in his task and only moved when a woman with a stroller passed close by.

They grow 'em bigger down there.

Several times during the trip, upon hearing that we were from the American west, the Aussies would make a comment along the lines of "This landscape must seem very familiar to you." I guess that would be true of the geology; sandstone escarpments and gorges, the desert of the center are all familiar in a way. But the plants and animals are so different, it would be hard to confuse the two. We certainly don't have anything like these big silver cycads growing where we live.




And we certainly don't have termite mounds like these in the U.S. either.

Thar be salties here.

I had thought we might have a swim at Wangi Falls, but this sign warning of possible saltwater crocs in the water was a fair deterrent. Since they do usually allow swimming here, we wondered just how they knew the crocs had shown up...

Behind the orange barrier is a beautiful pool at the base of the falls. There was a good sized colony of flying foxes hanging out in a tree over the pool, and we tried to point them out to the couple on the viewing platform next to us. It turned out they were German, with a very limited command of English. I, of course, have an equally limited command of German, and couldn't for the life of me recall the German word for bat, so we began a ridiculous pantomime of flying bats, vampire fangs; anything I could think of to communicate what I was trying to point out. They would nod and smile and point at something in completely the wrong direction. There were dozens of them and they were moving around, so it wasn't as if they were hard to spot, but they had some difficulties. Finally, they saw them, and we all grinned. As soon as they said the word "fledermaus", I remembered it. It translates as "flitter mouse".




The path here literally follows the border between the wet rainforest on the left and the dryer woodlands on the right. Because the region experiences 6 months or so with no rain at all, the plants are fairly specialized and the densest rainforest can only live where there is permanent water.




A view inside the rainforest.





A look up and down the creek that forms Wangi falls, right where it tumbles over the escarpment.




The angle of view is somewhat narrow here, but the woodlands extend as far as one can see, with no sign of human habitation.




And at last, the falls themselves. We are looking straight at the sun, which is searing directly into our brains through the giant hole in the ozone layer, but, you know, anything for a picture.