Day 3 and 4: Kakadu National Park.

Today we were in paradise. Went through hell to get there but we really found paradise. But I will get to that after talking about yesterday first. We are now truly in the Outback and have 0 cell phone network for 2 days already with probably 2 more days to go, so probably a lot of days will need to be posted on this blog at once. They call it the Outback for a reason.

So, about yesterday. Yesterday started in the same way as the days before: at 1am Olivia woke up and so did we. Hanne and I took turns getting her to sleep and I unfortunately had the last turn, so limited sleep for me. We are starting to love jetlag. A few hours later, we went to see what the Lonely Planet website recently called "one of the Australian wonders of the world". We went to the ancient site of Ubirr where Aborigines have been doing rock painting for the past 20,000 years in a magnificent setting in the heart of Kakadu. I dont remember how old Lascaux is but 20k years sounds close to the oldest remaining "writing" of men, and it is amazing that there are still people around who can explain the stories that are written! They only stopped rock painting about 10 years ago since none of te children pass by Ubirr anymore to read and learn, which is why they wrote the stories in the first place.

We had the ambitious plan to then drive to Yellow Water and catch the 3pm boat tour over the South Alligator River* and local "Home Billabong" to then drive out to a (said to be) nice waterfall at Gunlom. Unfortunately, we arrived to a "no more seats available, next one is the Sunset Tour at 16h30" which would kick us back to 18h30 and imply we'd have to skip the waterfall. Or... we could just take our time, do the boat trip, sleep there and go for Gonlum the next day, right? Right! So we did. And it was amazing! Never do Kakadu without a billabong boat tour. We saw beautifull wetlands, amazing birds (loads of them and names we had never heard of, at least not in English) and crocs, many crocs. But, we saw more... We saw what a Kenya Safari guide would call a "kill": we saw a croc killing a huge fish by breaking the head off through a few powerfull swings with his body out of the water! Awesome!! And we have it on videoc:-) Olivia was loving it as well, although it is still a "CroCroCo" for her. We will continue practicing.

What a day. And more to come because the next morning we set off to the Gonlum waterfall to then drive straight on to Katherine Gorge to see the gorges there and spend the night. About 350km driving and only 2 big activities (we learned from the day before), which seemed feasible. However, when I say "morning", it means after snoozing for 45min because (halleluja!!) Olivia slept through the night! This in turn meant we left at about 9h20 vs the planned 8h30. Then came the 37km road to Gonlum which all guidebooks call "perfectly OK for a 2WD car". It turned out to be very similar to the Kenyan "my 4WD jeep is going to get destroyed if I drive faster than 15km/h" safari roads. Result: took us much longer to get there and almost destroyed half the motorhome. The fridge (with special closing system to prevent opening while driving) actually opened up and had to be reassembled when we arrived. Stuff that had been in the back of our (remember, 8m long) car, suddenly appeared in the front. And even Olivia eventually woke up from the sound of the car shaking around. I cant describe that incredibly loud noise... so we filmed it :-)

So, at about 11:30 instead of 9am we arrived at Gonlum, to see... a ridiculously small waterfall! It is end of Dry Season for a reason. But, apparently there was a nice natural pool at the top where crocs can not reach (probably because they have short legs :-) or because the Wet season water doesnt come that high). We didnt come through this hell road for nothing so asked whether we could climb up with Olivia in a backpack on my back. The answer of the local Aussie was "yes, of course". The answer should've been: "it is twice as hard as driving an 8m long 2WD monstertruck motorhome through that road you just took"! But, we only found out about that when it was too late. Add the fact that it is 37• in the shade these days and that the climb was in plane sun (remember, it is around noon when we are here) and you will understand the challenge: we went through hell. But, BUT, what we found when we finally reached the top, was sheer paradise on earth. We have both seen some places in our lives but this was the closest we have gotten to paradise: a secluded little undeep pond with the clearest mountain-water you can imagine, at perfect temperature, in a gorge created by the (now little) river and with view from the pond over the entire Kakadu underneath (compare the latter experience with those swimming pools where water comes till the very top and then you have the panoramic view). I can't describe it. Breathtaking. And Olivia, in her "surf girl" wetsuit, simply loved it. Perfect temperature for her to splash around! Again, we have it on video.

Then came the walk down, which was the same as up but then down (read: much more difficult). Again through hell and then again that shaky road. We had already given up the plan to do Katherine Gorge still and were now hoping to simply get there before dark (which we didnt succeed although we were close).

We went through probably the least visited road of Australia (that we will do at least) and had our first mega stress-encounter with "hmm, why is the Diesel meter blimping 0 all the time" but we are now safe and sound in the camp site next to the Gorge, ready for a boat tour tomorrow and then thé road trip of our holidays: 1200+350 km through the absolute Nothing to Uluru. We planned 2,5 days but with our small delays so far I am hoping for 1,5 days. I just hope this planning doesnt turn out like all the previous cause we have a plane to catch after Uluru!

Ciao mates!

*the attentive reader must have noticed that the river is called "Alligator" whereas the ancient beasts here are called "Crocodiles". The reason is simple: when the first white folk arrived (must have been Dutch :-)), they didnt know the difference and named all the rivers "Alligator" (East, South, West). By the time a more educated person came by, it was too late to rename them. So the crocs live in Alligator Rivers.