2002/11 Australia trip - Yellow Waters and Nourlangie |
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Our clothes needed washing, so we headed for a more civilized campground. We chose the Gagudju 
resort at Cooinda as the hotel there has an early morning boat trip to Yellow Waters on the South Alligator River, as well as a launderette. The “alligator” name was a mistake as there aren’t any alligators here, but there are certainly plenty of crocs. We hiked around the billabongs (lakes) keeping a close eye on the shoreline, as we didn’t intend to feed the crocs. 
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Road to Cooinda (6.09) |
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There were birds everywhere: magpie geese, egrets, jacanas (jesus birds that walk on the lilypads), brolgas (elegant cranes with red faces), eagles. The 
brolgas are famous for their graceful dancing, but when they’re digging some food out of the ground they use their big beaks like daggers. We also stopped at the Warradjan cultural centre. This was quite well done, with lots of history, art, and music. A number of tour groups came through while we were in there, but most of the 
people just looked bored.
That evening, Sandie did the washing while I cooked and wrote some of this journal. There was
a didgeridoo concert going on at the hotel and it was loud enough for us to listen in the campground even though we didn’t have the time to attend.
Friday October 18th
Next morning, we were on the bus by 6.15 and first into the boat and we got the front 
seats. No shade, but we got the best view. Luckily, it was a foggy morning and pleasantly cool. The guide was very good. He just shouted out a continual stream of directions of things to look at “1 o’clock egret, 3 o’clock glossy ibis, 6 
o’clock magpie geese, 9 o’clock big croc in the water, ..”
We saw wild horses and even some wild pigs the size of cows. There was certainly plenty to look at.
Because it’s the end of the Dry season, all the rivers and billabongs had shrunk and all the animals were concentrated in the few remaining wet places.
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Yellow Waters (1.08.12) |
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This was great for the crocs as they didn’t have to move far to find a meal. All this
would change by 
February after a couple of months of the Wet, as the water would rise twenty feet and the area would look like a sea.
By the end of our trip, smoke from the aborigine’s fires had replaced the fog and we could se
e thousands of magpie geese landing through the smoke.
This was a great spot, but we were moving on again. We followed the road through the park to Nourlangie Rock, famous for its aboriginal art in its caves and in the shelters under its cliffs.
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Nourlangie art (10.09) |
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This 
was interesting stuff, much more advanced than what we’d seen at Carnarvon.
We’d have liked to try some of the longer trails around the rock but we decided to save them for a cooler day in the future. It’s really difficult to carry enough water for a long hike in this country.
We drove to nearby Anbangbang billabong for a lunch stop. This lake only had water in its 
centre, but it was full of birds: geese, brolgas and jabirus (black and white storks). There were probably some crocs too so we stayed clear of the edges. Anbangbang was also in the Crocodile Dundee movie: this was where Paul 
Hogan jumped in with his knife to save Linda Kozlowski from the croc.
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Anbangbang Billabong (5.20) |
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Sandie made tea while I hiked around the billabong. It took longer than I expected. I came across a 4-wheel drive bus and an adventure tour group sitting under a tree getting a nature lecture from their guide. I breezed out of the bush with a “Good afternoon. Lovely day” and heard the “Where the hell did he come from?” as I continued back into the bush.
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