First week

Day 1, 2, 3

Well we are on the road to Kakadu after spending 2 lovely nights in Darwin at an Airbnb. We soon realised that our plan to walk regularly needed some adjustment. We decided to walk into town from the BnB – about5 kms. However we had not taken the humidity and temperature into account, and after 10 minutes walk had had enough and hailed a taxi.!!! We had a nice couple of days finishing with a fish and chip meal at a famous restaurant on the harbour. They served the biggest barramundi – so big in fact that we had take half the meal home. Unfortunately we left it in the fridge at the BnB.
We drove to Jabiru from Darwin – an uneventful 190k’s but not a coffee opportunity anywhere.  We are staying at Kakadu Lodge caravan park which has a lovely pool and everything else you could possibly want.

Day 4 Thursday

The Campervan was surprisingly comfortable and has everything we need.  Well nearly everything. (No coffee machine!)  I will have to improve my organisation skills though.  After gathering all the necessities for a shower, I discovered I had forgotten to take a towel and had to get dressed while still wet.  A new experience! It was a nice change to get up with the temp at 20*C and have breakfast lolling around outside.
After breakfast we headed out to an internationally significant Ramsay wetland and the Mamukala bird hide.  This was truly spectacular!  The wetlands were covered with pink water lilies and we spotted a number of birds. Only 2 other people there so it was very peaceful.  We will go out again at sunset when we hope there are even more birds.  Sunset proved more successful for bird spotting.  We saw many  flocks of Magpie Geese, Egrets, Ibis, Jacanas.
In the afternoon we drove out to Ubirr  for a ranger guided talk and walk to some of the best aboriginal cave paintings in Australia.  On the way there we made a fantastic discovery. There was a Thai restaurant, YES a Thai restaurant and takeaway nestled in the bush. Well restaurant might conjure up the wrong impression – roadhouse might be more accurate. But they had a good menu, served huge meals, AND MADE A VERY REASONABLE CAPPUCCINO . At $5.50 a mug price was no barrier.
So onto rock country with paintings done over 20,000 years and  very detailed.  Mostly they tell stories about the animals that can be caught in the area.  The guide told us many stories from the Aboriginal Dreamtime. We ended up scrabbling up one of the many beautiful escarpments to sit and watch the sunset over the wetlands  below.