Day 36 – Friday 22 July 2016 – Darwin

Another day at camp as I was determined Shane should venture out to Kakadu – who goes to Darwin and doesn’t go to Kakadu?  One of us had to.  It was housework, Blog updates, a bit of crochet and looking into the details for our next leg of the journey which we have decided to make some changes to in order to take in the Daintree before heading south again.  Might as well make the most of being north while we are here!

It was a pretty quiet day at camp although we did have a little visitor in the morning.  It was a pretty warm day so the dogs were happy to just chill in the van.  Scheppi sometimes doesn’t get enough credit for figuring things out as he soon discovered that the coolest spot was right in the middle of the bed where the air conditioner throws out the cool air – and that was where he spent most of the day.

The highlight of the day was the arrival of the ice-cream van.  Hey – when you are a dog there isn’t a whole bunch of excitement on a 29 degree day and your home is a caravan and annexe.

Meanwhile the Great Explorer (ummm his description – not mine) was discovering Kakadu National Park under strict instructions “Not to be a Water Buffalo”.  I’m sure if you’ve watched any of those nature programs that have crocodiles, you would have seen the one where the poor old water buffalo comes to the edge of the water to drink and suddenly out of the water springs a crocodile and grabs the water buffalo on the nose and drags him into the water.  Lesson – don’t be a water buffalo.

With that in mind – armed with a camera and video camera and a significant supply of banana lollies – the great explorer (TGE) ventured into Kakadu to find photographic opportunities.  He happened across a river which had a group of people standing on an observation platform.  Venturing closer to the crowd he could see they were watching two crocodiles swimming in the river.  Frustrated at not being able to obtain a front rail position, he ventured around to where a cement crossing divided the river joining Kakadu to Arnhem Land and found the perfect location from which to document said wildlife.  While videoing, he noticed through the lens that one crocodile was heading towards his ideal vantage point and remembering those strict instructions did the only honourable thing a grown man could do – run like a girl back up the bank.

Please note: no water buffalo were injured in the filming of this video.

Water Buffalo incidents aside, Shane found Kakadu fascinating and would have loved to have spent a lot more time looking around.  Unfortunately he arrived too late to join in with any of the tours, but saw some of the rock paintings, climbed up huge rock formations and managed to take some really great shots of the area.