Kakadu & Arnhem Land: Explore magical wetlands

It's one of those magical, iconic places which, like Uluru, the Simpson, Cape York and the Kimberley, is on the "must do one day" wish list of most Australians.

But, you say, it's remote, the tracks are nasty, I need a four-wheel drive and all the camping and survival gear necessary for an outback expedition to get there and back in one piece, right?

No you don't. While some parts of Kakadu are accessible only by 4WD, many of its highlights are easily reached in a conventional family sedan, like a Falcon or Commodore, on good sealed highways. Kakadu covers a vast area of 20,000 square kilometres, making it Australia's largest national park.

The beauty of Kakadu is the incredible variety of landscapes and cultural influences within its boundaries

It includes four major river systems, the main one being the South Alligator River. Its landforms include estuaries and tidal flats, mangroves, monsoon forests, floodplains, savannah and the ancient sandstone country of the Arnhemland plateau and its outliers, the scattered stone outcrops on its western edge, which borders the park. Integral to this landscape is the culture of the local Aboriginal people, the Bininj/Mungguy. Kakadu is jointly managed by these traditional owners and Parks Australia.

World Heritage-listed Kakadu preserves and protects one of the world's finest collections of rock art (5000 sites), the world's largest pristine tropical wetlands system and more than one third of the total number of bird species in Australia. So it's no wonder that visitors from all over the world are keen to see it.

Getting to Kakadu can be as simple as flying to Darwin, hiring a car, and heading down the Stuart and Arnhem highways on the two hour drive to the park's western boundary.

Saltwater crocodiles

Before you reach Kakadu, however, you might like try a somewhat off-beat introduction to another Territory icon, the saltwater crocodile, on a Jumping Crocodile cruise.

Several cruises operate near the Adelaide River bridge crossing, about 65km from Darwin on the Arnhem Highway.

The Adelaide River Queen idles up the river, where many crocs lead well fed lives on the muddy, overgrown banks. It makes several stops on the one and a half hour trip, when a pork chop is dangled from a pole to entice a "salty" into the water, then up for a spectacular leap to grab his snack.

It's a bit of a circus act - the big boy crocs have names like Aggro and Bogart, and they come to the boat like trained pooches - but it's fun and you certainly get as intimate with these amazing beasts as possible without becoming bait yourself.

The guides also provide informed commentary about the how, why and where of crocs, and you'll hear the latest tales of hapless tourists who ignored the signs and went for a swim.

Which, in case you hadn't guessed, is something you just don't do in Kakadu, or any of the top end waterways north of Katherine

Kakadu

Heading west from Adelaide River along the Arnhem Highway, it's another 100km or so to the Kakadu entry station. Here, you can purchase a seven day visitors pass, which includes a comprehensive guidebook to the park. Kids under 16 are free.

Once in Kakadu proper, the highway crosses several rivers - the Wildman, West Alligator and South Alligator - which together comprise the park's key area of protection, the tropical wetlands.

Mamukala wetlands, 100km east of the entry station just after you cross the South Alligator River, is your first chance to see this unique environment up close.

It's important to note that what you see in Kakadu is very much dependent upon when you go there. Life is ruled by the seasons, of which the Bininj/Mungguy have over the millennia, defined as six on the basis of weather changes and their effect on the life cycle of the parks' plants, animals and birds.

In whitefella parlance, the top end wet season runs from about late November until late April. While this is when Kakadu's waterfalls and wetlands are at their most spectacular, it is during the dry season - May to October - that the parks' incredible variety of birdlife becomes concentrated around those billabongs and marshes which are able to retain water throughout the year.

At Mamukala, for example, thousands of magpie geese assemble in the late dry - September and October - to feed and rest. A covered viewing platform has been constructed at the edge of the wetland, with a terrific mural on which an elder from the local Murrumburr clan explains the seasonal changes.

We visited Kakadu in late May-early June, at the tail end of the longest wet season the locals could remember. As a rule, the dry is the best time to go, not least because there is no risk of road closures, a common occurrence in the wet. Many of the park's walks are also closed during the wet season.

Jabiru, 34 kilometres east of Mamukala on the highway, is Kakadu's main service and accommodation centre. Just before you reach Jabiru, the Kakadu Highway turns off to the right and heads south west through the centre of the park to its southern boundary near Pine Creek. Take this turn, and you'll see the entrance to the Bowali Visitors Centre immediately on the right.

Bowali Visitors Centre

Bowali is worth spending some time at before you visit the main attractions. Its design and colour evokes an aboriginal rock shelter, and inside the Bininj/Mungguy people describe in their own words how they, the land and its life forms are intertwined. As with any travel in aboriginal land, your experience is only complete when you are aware of this connection, which in Kakadu stretches back 50,000 years. Bowali also has detailed displays on the history and current management of Kakadu, plus all the maps and brochures you'll need to get around.

While it would be possible to spend several weeks in Kakadu - especially with a four-wheel drive - exploring the park in detail, three areas are must sees if you're on a shorter itinerary, driving a conventional car.

Ubirr

The first is Ubirr, a spectacular rock art site and lookout 47km east of Jabiru, adjacent to the East Alligator River which forms the parks' eastern boundary with Arnhemland.

It's an easy one kilometre walk around Ubirr, a sandstone outcrop under which several striking examples of rock art, including simple red ochre paintings and the more recent X-ray styles unique to the top end, are still clearly visible, together with interpretive signs. Rangers also conduct regular talks on art and aboriginal culture.

You'll learn of the Rainbow Serpent, who created the Kakadu landscape and is also part of Central Australian aboriginal dreaming, and the Namarrgann sisters, who used to play near the mouth of the East Alligator and would hide from each other by changing themselves into crocodiles.

As the sun starts to set, climb to the top of the adjacent outcrop for one of Kakadu's killer views, a 360 degree panorama across the Nardab floodplain to the west and, to the east, the dramatic cliffs of the Arnhemland escarpment.

If you have the time beforehand, you can also do a couple of easy walks along the East Alligator River, near Cahills Crossing, the causeway which crosses the river to Arnhem Land itself. The 2.5 kilometre Bardedjilidji walk, south of Cahills Crossing, takes you through a pandanus woodland, layered sandstone and monsoon rainforest.

If you're feeling energetic, it's worth extending this walk on an adjoining 6.5km track which links the East Alligator with Mawernewerne Creek, and passes through sandstone outcrops, paperbark forest, beaches, tidal and freshwater streams. The East Alligator is also a renowned spot for catching barramundi, particularly during the late wet-early dry seasons (April-June.) Heading south on the Kakadu Highway from Jabiru, Nourlangie is 19 km from the Bowali Visitors Centre.

Nourlangie

Nourlangie is another superb rock art site, which also features a 1.5 kilometre circular walk around its base, and a natural overhang which the local aboriginal people used as a shelter.

It features dramatic images of Lightning Man; from the lookout you can also see, across the plain, the deeply convoluted sandstone cliffs which even local aboriginal people will not approach due to their significance in the Creation period.

In the dry season, the 2.5km Anbangbang walk, across the main road from Nourlangie, takes you around the shores of one of Kakadu's prettiest billabongs.

Yellow Water wetlands

The final highlight in our whistle-stop, sealed road Kakadu tour is the Yellow Water wetlands, 30km south of Nourlangie, near Cooinda, a hotel/backpackers/caravan park/restaurant/service centre.

On the approach road, drop into the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre which, like Bowali, shows you how the Bininj/Mungguy lived with and from the land and the water. Yellow Water Cruises operates several one and a half to two hour cruises each day. Take the last boat so you can be out in the wetlands at dusk. It is a Kakadu experience you will not forget.

You boat glides into the Yellow Waters system of floodplains and billabongs, through vast floating grasslands, paperbark swamps and exquisite lilies. Jabiru, brolga, heron, egret, the magnificent white bellied sea eagle, ducks and kingfishers can all be seen at close range, along with crocodiles lurking nearby.

All is quiet and calm, almost like a Garden of Eden in its unspoiled beauty. This is the real Kakadu deal - for once, the brochures are an understatement.

Your return trip to Darwin will take about four hours, initially continuing south west on the Kakadu Highway for 158km to Pine Creek, where you join the Stuart Highway for the 230km run north to the capital.

You can do this Arnhem Highway/Kakadu Highway loop in three days at a pinch, but four days is better. Of course, there are many other art sites, gorges, billabongs and walks you can do on this route - so if you can extend your Kakadu visit beyond the bare minimum, you'll find it all the more memorable and rewarding.

Story by Bill McKinnon. Image courtesy Tourism NT.

All information was correct at the time of writing but may change without notice.