Darwin and Kakadu, August 2002

The best thing about flying into Darwin is that it's one of the shortest flights from Singapore to Australia. The worst thing was that the Qantas flight got in at 4:15am., although by that point it had been 20 hours since I left London and I didn't have much of a body clock left. I caught the bus from the airport to the backpackers' hostel, which opened at 6.15am. To make sure I got a bit of sleep, I'd booked it from the previous day. Unfortunately, they'd messed up the booking though they did find me a bed after I complained. It was not an auspicious start to the trip.

Rock escarpment, Kakadu

Darwin isn't a particularly big place, though there's a fair mix of people there. It had been ten years since my previous visit, and there were a few more pubs and shops than I remembered. There isn't an awful lot to see there. Some friends dragged me down to see the Oil Storage Tunnels. These were built during the war and are long tunnels cut into the cliff. The walls were lined with old photographs and it was reasonably interesting for about half an hour and it wasn't very expensive.

Darwin isn't famous for its diving, but there is some diving in the harbour. The city has the dubious distinction of being the only Australian city to be bombed in WWII. The first raid was on 19^th February 1942. During that raid a number of ships were sunk including the Mauna Loa, the USS Meigs and the USS Peary. I'd arranged to dive with Cullen Bay Dive. The area experiences very large tides which badly effects the visibility. Diving is only done on neaps tides, which is about once a fortnight. I'd chosen to dive on the Sunday, which was the first day they were diving since the previous neap. They warned me not to expect the visibility to be very good.

The dive shop was well stocked, did nitrox and even trimix. Apparently they run their trimix courses inland in a disused mine shaft, which sounded interesting. They had a couple of nice boats and I was on the one that was going to do the Mauna Loa. This was a US transport ship. Unfortunately, since it sank, it had been heavily salvaged, ironically by a Japanese salvage company. They hadn't been allowed to touch the cargo, just the ship itself which had been sticking out of the water and was a hazard to shipping.

I was diving with a local, who had a reel with him and was planning to run a line back to the shot. The water was 27°C, though I still didn't feel that warm in my 3mm wetsuit. At the bottom of the shotline was a Bren gun carrier. This was a bit like a mini-tank and quite interesting. The viz was at best 3m and the bottom was easily stirred up, so it was a lot worse in places. Apart from the Bren gun carrier, there didn't seem to be an awful lot to see. It really had been heavily salvaged. I saw some bricks, the odd bit of unidentifiable wreckage, a ladder and rather a lot of modern, aluminium beer cans. Our maximum depth was 19.6m and our dive time was 36 minutes in all.

As the viz was so bad on the wreck, they decided to go to a site called the Pinnacles. This was supposed to normally have the best viz of the available sites. Unfortunately, it was about the same, so quite murky. There were a few fish about, though it was hard to make out what they were, as they seemed to keep their distance. The reef itself was made up of brain and plate corals. I was amazed it could live in such murky water. I guess the viz must improve as the tides get less. Our maximum depth was 11m and we only stayed down for 27 minutes, though I think that was enough.

I was quite disappointed by the diving I did, especially as the Pinnacles was my 500^th dive. It would have been good if it could have been something nice. The poor visibility on the wreck didn't worry me. It was the fact that it had been so heavily salvaged. It really wasn't recognisable as a ship at all, and I've seen some fairly beat-up UK wrecks in my time. Perhaps some of the other wrecks are better. Certainly Cullen Bay Dive is one of the better Aussie shops I've been to. Their trimix mine dive sounded interesting. Maybe I'll give that a try next time.

Croc jumping for some meat

Apart from the diving, I'd also planned to do a 2 day safari in Kakadu National Park with Kakadu Dreams. The park is the size of Wales and is important for its wildlife, especially bird life, and for the Aboriginal rock paintings found there. It is also full of saltwater crocodiles. Saltwater crocodiles live in both fresh and saltwater estuaries. They're very dangerous. The only really safe place to swim in Kakadu is the swimming pool in Jabiru town. There is water at both Jim Jim and Twin Falls. At these sites, the rangers survey for crocodiles after the wet season, which is when they move around. There are baited traps at these sites, so the risk is a lot less, but it's not zero and the signs make it quite clear that you swim at your own risk. A group of tourists went for a swim at another location about 6 weeks after my visit. One of them was killed. There are no safe sites, no matter what anyone, local or otherwise tells you.

Some of the sites are accessible by 4WD only, so we were travelling in a Toyota Landcruiser Troopcarrier. Unless it was your turn to sit in the front, this meant sitting on low seats in the back facing one another. It wasn't very comfortable, especially if you've got reasonably long legs. I think mine started to ache after about half an hour.

First stop was on the way to Kakadu at the Adelaide River. We got on a boat and went out to see the crocodiles. Since they're naturally quite shy, they feed them to attract them. The crocs are now used to being fed, recognise the sounds of the different boats and swim over if they're feeling hungry. If they're not, they just stay on the bank sunning themselves. They're still far from tame though. It's a bit contrived but at least you do get to see them. They use meat on the end of a crude fishing rod. As he croc comes over, they raise the meat and get them to jump out of the water. Then the boat is manoeuvred so that the croc has to jump out again before it finally gets the meat. They do jump quite a long way out of the water, but it's hard to capture with a still camera unless you've got a very expensive one which takes lots of frames a second, which I don't.

Then it was onto Kakadu itself. We stopped at a waterhole and saw some of the water birds and then headed to the east of the park. On the way we saw quite a large bush fire. The size of the park means that these fires are just left to burn themselves out naturally. Controlled burning is done at certain times of the year which stops the fire spreading too far. Even this one burnt itself out overnight.

In the afternoon on the first day, we climbed a small hill near Nourlangie, where there were some caves and overhangs with Aboriginal rock paintings. There was also a nice view of the escarpment beyond which is the Arnham Land. Then we headed south and watched the sun set over Yellow Water Billabong. As we were waiting for the sun to set, a three metre long crocodile cruised past. I decided not to stand too close to the water's edge when I took my photo. Then in the dark, we drove onto the campsite near Jim Jim waterfalls. This was mostly along dirt roads and then rough 4WD tracks, so I was quite lucky that it was my turn to sit in the front. We didn't get to the campsite until about 9.30, so after dinner and a couple of drinks, it was quite a long day.

Twin falls, Kakadu National Park

There is a toilet at the campsite, but no showers or washing facilities, and I didn't fancy chancing the creek. We could best be described as “grubby” when we set off the next day. The red dust gets into every thing and never seems to come out of your clothes completely.

First stop was Jim Jim waterfalls. It's a a sheer 215m drop and probably looks quite impressive when there's water coming down it. However, it's completely dry by August, though there's still plenty of water in the 30m deep plunge pool at the foot. The best way to see it is during the wet from a scenic flight, as the tracks are completely closed at that time of year.

After Jim Jim, we went to Twin Falls, which doesn't dry up. To get to the base, you have to make your way up a narrow gorge which means either swimming or taking a canoe. We swam and air beds were provided if you wanted them. As well as the saltwater crocodile trap, there were also buoys marking the sites of freshwater crocodile nests. They're not normally dangerous but can get aggressive if provoked.

The bottom of the falls is a nice place to spend the day. It's sandy and deep enough to swim. Unfortunately, on our rushed itinerary, we only had half an hour to spend there before setting off again along the rough tracks we travelled the night before. We popped into the Visitor's Centre on the way home for a drink, but otherwise it was straight back to Darwin.

In retrospect, I wish I'd done a longer tour. Two days was nowhere near enough and it was all very hurried. We could have easily taken three days to visit the same places. The vehicle wasn't very comfortable, but they all looked much the same. The flies deserve a special mention. They are very annoying and have this habit of crawling around your nostrils just when you're about the breath in. I inhaled two of them. The feeling of one of them going up your nose and hitting the back of your throat isn't the most pleasant sensation in the world.

After Darwin, my next stop was Alice Springs, to the south. It's a long way by bus and the only place of note is Katherine, where there's a nice gorge that you can visit and canoe down. So I decided to fly. For some reason it was all booked when I tried to get this segment on my air pass six months previously, so I ended up paying full price, which was $365. Not exactly a bargain for a two hour flight, but then there's no real competition to Qantas on this route.

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