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Home again
Jun. 27th, 2011 04:55 pmHave been spending the last three weeks travelling with Rey and Harliquinn. We met up in Darwin (so Rey and I have finally visited all 6 states and 2 major territories) and spent a couple of days there.
- Visited "Crocosaurus Rex", a reptile park in central Darwin which turned out to be less cheesy than it sounds. They had an assortment of large saltwater crocodiles, mostly bulls who'd been retired from stud duties when they took to attacking the lady crocs. The largest there was 5.5 metres long and 800 kg; I took a photo but without somebody alongside him for comparison it doesn't really convey just how Do Not Want that is. They also had a good snake show with a decent presenter, and some nifty fish displays.
- Caught up with a very old friend (my Grade 1/2 teacher). Darwin is suiting her well; every so often she talks about retiring, but she's still working 3-5 days a week, doing fly-in teaching etc for remote Aboriginal schools.
- Saw the Darwin gallery & museum - small but good!
After that, we drove down to Cooinda/Gagudju and stayed there for four days. On the way we passed some huge termite mounds - one was at least 5 metres tall. (Rey and Harli had the good cameras, will post links when available.) The lodge at Cooinda was pretty good, though not much provision for people bringing their own food - evidently they wanted us to buy from the restaurant.
- Went out for a couple of two-hour cruises on the Yellow Water Billabong and the inaccurately-but-still-informatively-named South Alligator River. Most bodies of water in this region have warning notices to the effect of "this water is home to huge ambush predators that like eating people" and we saw quite a few crocodiles from the boat (including one small freshwater croc, spotted by Rey, who was doing his best not to be noticed by his bigger cousins). The scariest thing about them is not so much the size as the stealth; nuclear submarines have nothing on prowling crocs. We also saw countless birds, including brolgas and jabirus.
- Did a half-day "Animal Tracks" tour with an Aboriginal guide who still lives a largely hunter-gatherer lifestyle. She showed us several of the different types of bush tucker that can be collected in the area - palm hearts (kinda like bamboo shoots, but you have to get just the right palm tree), bush carrots, and green ants, among others. Green ants taste surprisingly nice, sort of lemon-y, and they're relatively easy to spot. Patsy mentioned that they're also good for headaches, but if you eat too many you stop breathing...
Her husband hunts feral buffalo with a .375; her father hunted them with a knife. She told us a hilarious story from her childhood about following her dad and a "cheeky puppy" and finding a buffalo - the puppy started chasing the buffalo, with her and her dad running after, and then the buffalo turned around and everybody started running in the other direction. Very Benny Hill... it was a very simply told story, but so much family love in that little tale. A big part of this trip for me was getting to see something of Aboriginal Australia.
At the end of the day we had dinner, with damper, (farmed) buffalo meat, barramundi that Patsy had caught for us, and the bush carrots we'd managed to dig up. Extremely tasty, although buffalo was quite chewy. If you go to Kakadu, I strongly recommend this tour; the money goes to good causes, keeping the local community self-sufficient.
- Full-day trip to Arnhem Land. We visited an Aboriginal art gallery and saw a lot of rock paintings. It was a pretty good tour, but hasn't stuck in my memory as much as Animal Tracks.
More about the later parts of the trip, another time...
- Visited "Crocosaurus Rex", a reptile park in central Darwin which turned out to be less cheesy than it sounds. They had an assortment of large saltwater crocodiles, mostly bulls who'd been retired from stud duties when they took to attacking the lady crocs. The largest there was 5.5 metres long and 800 kg; I took a photo but without somebody alongside him for comparison it doesn't really convey just how Do Not Want that is. They also had a good snake show with a decent presenter, and some nifty fish displays.
- Caught up with a very old friend (my Grade 1/2 teacher). Darwin is suiting her well; every so often she talks about retiring, but she's still working 3-5 days a week, doing fly-in teaching etc for remote Aboriginal schools.
- Saw the Darwin gallery & museum - small but good!
After that, we drove down to Cooinda/Gagudju and stayed there for four days. On the way we passed some huge termite mounds - one was at least 5 metres tall. (Rey and Harli had the good cameras, will post links when available.) The lodge at Cooinda was pretty good, though not much provision for people bringing their own food - evidently they wanted us to buy from the restaurant.
- Went out for a couple of two-hour cruises on the Yellow Water Billabong and the inaccurately-but-still-informatively-named South Alligator River. Most bodies of water in this region have warning notices to the effect of "this water is home to huge ambush predators that like eating people" and we saw quite a few crocodiles from the boat (including one small freshwater croc, spotted by Rey, who was doing his best not to be noticed by his bigger cousins). The scariest thing about them is not so much the size as the stealth; nuclear submarines have nothing on prowling crocs. We also saw countless birds, including brolgas and jabirus.
- Did a half-day "Animal Tracks" tour with an Aboriginal guide who still lives a largely hunter-gatherer lifestyle. She showed us several of the different types of bush tucker that can be collected in the area - palm hearts (kinda like bamboo shoots, but you have to get just the right palm tree), bush carrots, and green ants, among others. Green ants taste surprisingly nice, sort of lemon-y, and they're relatively easy to spot. Patsy mentioned that they're also good for headaches, but if you eat too many you stop breathing...
Her husband hunts feral buffalo with a .375; her father hunted them with a knife. She told us a hilarious story from her childhood about following her dad and a "cheeky puppy" and finding a buffalo - the puppy started chasing the buffalo, with her and her dad running after, and then the buffalo turned around and everybody started running in the other direction. Very Benny Hill... it was a very simply told story, but so much family love in that little tale. A big part of this trip for me was getting to see something of Aboriginal Australia.
At the end of the day we had dinner, with damper, (farmed) buffalo meat, barramundi that Patsy had caught for us, and the bush carrots we'd managed to dig up. Extremely tasty, although buffalo was quite chewy. If you go to Kakadu, I strongly recommend this tour; the money goes to good causes, keeping the local community self-sufficient.
- Full-day trip to Arnhem Land. We visited an Aboriginal art gallery and saw a lot of rock paintings. It was a pretty good tour, but hasn't stuck in my memory as much as Animal Tracks.
More about the later parts of the trip, another time...
