Kakadu National Park

Kakadu – such an iconic name, such an iconic place.  For us this is the place to really experience all the Northern Territory top end can throw at you in terms of climate, environment, indigenous history and culture.  Here the land is of flooding rains and ravaging heat and dry.  Here the stone country collides with the vast river wetlands that flood out to the tropical seas.  Here the people have lived, in this ever changing environment for not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of years.  And those people are not some distant ancestor that you are geographically and temporally displaced from.  Here they have links to country, links to ancestors, links to the environment that are not on display in some museum but abound on the rocks, in songs, in dances and in stories. 

As balanda (non-indigenous people) we are lucky to come here and view the amazing rock escarpments, the vast flood plains that turn to baked mud in the dry, see the diverse flora and fauna including living fossils like the estuarine crocodiles, take in the intricate art that was and still is painted using the rocks and plants of the country.  The traditional owners share this place with us and we know we are better, richer for our time here – and for this we thank them.

I have divided our recollections of Kakadu into two parts - this post is our images of the birds and animals, the magnificent country and the amazing art.  The next post will give you more of a travelogue of how we spent our time in Kakadu.  I hope you enjoy our images, we definitely enjoyed making them.