2002/11 Australia trip - Ubirr
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We stopped in Jabiru, the only real town inside the park.  It was built to serve the uranium mine that’s still in production.  It was clean and tidy, but all built from concrete and totally unappealing.  The campground here is adjacent to the famous Crocodile Holiday Inn, built in the shape of a crocodile.  This was not really to our taste, so we decided to go back to wilderness camping, and headed to Merl in the northeast corner of the park.  On the way there the bush was blazing away on one side of the road, but nobody was doing anything about it.  Just part of the aborigines’ burning schedule I guess. 

We found a nice spot in the forest at Merl, and then drove to Ubirr’s Trading Post and signed up for another boat trip the next day, this time on the East Alligator River.  All the land to the other side of the river is an aborigine reserve and we aren’t allowed in there without permission.  We took a quick trip to the Ubirr rock, the other famous aborigine art location in Kakadu, and just had time to visit a few of the caves and cliffs, but we ran out of daylight and headed back for an evening in the forest. 

 

	Ubirr (11.44)

Saturday October 19th
Next morning we called Melbourne to let them know that we were on schedule.  Edna was out on Carolyn’s Hens’ night (and day).  Phil and John were planning on heading to the horse races for the day and getting rich. 

	East Alligator River (11.14)

Initially, there were just us and a retired couple from Oregon on the boat.  But then a bus arrived and disgorged a few dozen geriatrics, all with their regulation-issue head nets in place.  Actually, we were glad they were coming as the owners probably wouldn’t have bothered running the trip with only four of us. 

The two guides were aborigines and they were talking mainly about how they used the plants we passed on the riverbank, so the emphasis was on culture rather than wildlife.  They both did a good job, and they had a good sense of humour. 

We landed on the aboriginal reserve side of the river in Arnhem Land and they told us more about their customs.  There was a big fuss going on about one of them.  Apparently a convicted killer had recently been handed over to the aborigine community for sentencing.  He was slowly speared to death according to aborigine law, and there’d been a big outcry from the white population. 

	Arnhem Land (8.54)

	East Alligator return (2.05)

On our way back up the river we found a medium-sized croc so a lot of the tour party were happy that they’d got to see one.
 
The terrain around the river looked interesting so we hiked the Bardedjilidji Walk along the river and through the rocks and caves, and found some more art.  Then we moved back to Ubirr to finish our tour of the rock art and climb to the top of the escarpment.  It was a magnificent 360-degree view from the top – cliffs, rivers, forest and lakes below us.  It’s a favourite spot for viewing sunsets, but we couldn’t stay around that long.

	Bardedjilidji Walk (2.17)

	Ubirr art (11.07)

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