Kakadu and Shady Camp

We have the most amazing collection of photos from the last week. Not because we are skilled photographers, but because we saw some of God's beautiful creation! It was hard to select photos for the blog without posting too many... but here goes...

KAKADU

With the alarm set for the disgusting hour of 4.30am, we met Geoff's Uncle Bill and Aunty Ros, bound for their secret fishing location in Kakadu. Along the way, we met up with their son Aaron and a few of their friends - there was 11 of us in total. We turned off a dirt road, and followed them on a rough track past some scenic billabongs and savannah woodlands...

The further in we went the rougher the track got. At some points, I don't even think we were even on a track!! You can just see the car in front we were following...

Then at one point, Bill stopped and said, "This is it. This is camp." and I actually laughed because I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn't.

So we spent the next couple of hours clearing the bush to make way for a camp. We LOVED it as THIS was real camping. The real outback. We even had to clear a track down to the South Alligator river to launch all the boats.

All the work payed off and it made for an excellent bonfire later that night. Too bad it was so stinking hot!

The motivation for clearing and setting up camp quickly became clear - FISHING!! They were all mad keen barra fishermen. After lunch, we launched the tinnies and made our way up the river.. 

There were some points we had to really squeeze the boat through fallen trees... it was great.

Even better, I landed my first barra! Which was followed by two more. Yeehaa!

It was an amazing afternoon of fishing. Everyone was catching barra and you could even see them in the water. And of course, we had barra for dinner - thanks to Doreen for showing us how to cook it nicely!

The following afternoon, Geoff hiked down river to fish with Bungy and Doreen. He says it was the best hike he has ever done. He walked probably 1km downstream, criss-crossing across the creek, catching small barra out of little holes. It reminded him of being a kid out on Gunegaldra Ck in Warren, (and also Bear Grilles from Man Vs Wild). 

Whilst Geoff was hiking through the bush, I went fishing in the boat with Aaron and Lori. And lo and behold, would you believe I landed the biggest barra out of everyone! So stoked. This beauty weighed in just under 15 pounds and was 82cm long... The funny thing was, Lori had her lure stuck in a tree on one side and Aaron had his lure stuck in a tree on the other side of the river and I was trying to play this monster in the middle... 

I won the firecracker prize for biggest barra caught in camp. It was a proud moment in my 29 years.

Later that night, Bill treated us all to a fireworks show down by the river. 

Before I knew what was happening, Aaron had caught a cane toad and stuffed a firecracker down its gob. As it bounced away towards us and exploded, I was surprised and grateful when I slowly opened my eyes and the toads bits were still intact. Pretty sure he wasn't feeling so good though...

The following morning we went for a 4WD with Aaron and Lori to another Billabong for a fish. We all caught barra but they were all undersized (they must be 55cm to be legal).

That afternoon, fishing from the boat, Geoff caught his first legal barra! Whoo hoo! (He had caught plenty of undersized ones though).

We had the best time with these guys. It will definitely be one of the highlights of our trip, not only for their company but also loved the remoteness of it. Between 11 of us, we caught around 40 legal barramundi. A success I would say. (Photo below is the fish carcasses that the birds have yet to clean up).

As we were packing up to leave on Saturday morning, we had to laugh when Aaron drove past towing 3 boats behind his car. He had dragged them up from the river and into camp.

Driving away from our remote camp, we saw our first live feral pig 

(all the rest we have seen have been roadkill). 

SHADY CAMP

After saying goodbye to our new friends, we headed North to a place called Shady Camp on the Mary River (its not part of Kakadu). This place is known for crocs so we thought we would check it out. We were not disappointed! The croc population was huge which made putting the tinnie in the water quite stressful to say in the least! The camp was called Shady Camp due to its lack of shade. We found a bit of shade although it was horrifically hot during the afternoon (in my humble, pregnant opinion). Geoff guessed the temperature to be around 34 degrees, I reckon it was closer to 45.

The river is divided by a barrage. On one side of the barrage is fresh water and on the other side saltwater which is tidal. On low tide there is NO water at all in the river. We have heard of boats getting stuck and having to sit in their boats for a few hours surrounded by crocs until the water rises again. It was good to see the extremity of the tide the first night we arrived. We also loved the sunset!

This is the freshwater side...

And the barrage between the two...

The next morning, when there was enough water on the saltwater side we launched the tinnie. We had to wade about 6m in the murky, croc invested water to our tinnie as it was too shallow to pull it closer to shore. Not fun, especially when there is a nice sized croc on the other side of the river and a smaller one hanging 20m away from the boat! Once safely in the boat, we checked and double checked the bungs were secure! You can see why... the banks were lined with crocs!!!

This is all you would see when they were in the water. The thing I hate most is when they slowly, creepily disappear below the surface and you have no idea where they are.

Late in the afternoon (when it had cooled down), we launched the boat in the freshwater side. The freshwater croc below was the only freshwater one we saw. The rest were all salties. It was the most scenic, tranquil, serene boat trip... I wish I had a better vocabulary to describe it! At one point, we turned off the motor and just absorbed God's breathtaking creation...

Aaaahhhh..... the serenity.....

KAKADU (again)

On Monday morning we left Shady Camp and did a whirlwind trip through the rest of Kakadu that we hadn't seen - the tourist loop. We had imagined it to be lush, green billabongs... a land flowing with milk and honey if you like. Most of Kakadu was brown, dry woodlands with the occasional green billabong. Apparently, you need to get off the main loop highway to experience it at its best, but we just didn't have the time. Here is our photos of what we managed to see in a day...

We arrived yesterday late afternoon back in civilisation in Katherine. From here, we will head west to the Kimberly region in WA before heading down the west coast. 7 weeks of travel left!!