Out here in 'Never Never Land' when you drive down the road through Kakadu there really is not much to see, well there is a whole lot of nothing, red dirt, roads and stumpy trees. But this morning we took a cruise on the Yellow River which is part of the South Alligator river system and saw the views that have made it onto a dozen travel shows around the world. After the 'wet' this whole place is one big flood plain teaming with wildlife of all sorts.
On a two hour cruise this morning we saw so many crocodiles, probably 30 at least, all in their natural habitat. Some were sunning themselves on the river bank, some were swimming in the river right next to the boat. Rather large creatures when you get that up close and personal to them!
The young ranger driving our boat would nudge it into the edge of the river so that we could see anything of intrest really easily. The second ranger on board was one of the local Kakadu tribe and he was pointing things out for us to see. His eye sight was amazing. When we pulled in to the bank to see one particular crocodile he pointed out a snake in the branches of the tree we were next to! None of us had thought to look up above us at that particular point, we were all concentrating on the crocodile on the river bank.
We also saw wild horses, feral pigs and so many magnificent bird species that the bird watchers on board were nearly beside themselves. We saw the so called jesus bird as it is able to walk on the leaves of the water lillies without sinking so looks like it is walking on water, hence its name. We saw a pair of white sea eagles, beautifully majestic sitting on a tree overhanging the river.
We saw whistling ducks, cop that, a duck that whistles instead of quacking! And of course we saw the jabiru, the iconic NT symbol. Big birds of a similar size to brolgas and cranes.
There was a whole heap more, kingfishers and finches and magpie geese and plovers and on and on it went.
One of the stunning sights was a particular type of water lilly that grows to enormous size. The leaves were a good two foot in diameter and the flowers were just as big and came in blue, pink, lilac, white. Stunning.
The commentary included information on the various ways the local tribes use the river system like one huge supermarket. The ranger said there are more fish in the rivers of Kakadu than the total of the water systems of Qld, NSW and Vic combined. No wonder the territorians are always going fishing.
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