Kakadu

We made it to Kakadu and stayed at Cooinda campground, such a beautiful resort and located right at yellow waters river cruise, so time to see some crocs! Whilst it was good to see crocs in their natural habitat the scenery was stunning, particularly on the sunset cruise.

So after our cruise and dinner I was sitting outside having a glass of wine before bed, then out of nowhere a brumby decides to walk across right in front of me lol heart rate did jump lol

We visited the cultural centre which was great then spoke to some others travelling and some locals who suggested we do the guluyambi cultural river cruise.

Guluyambi cultural cruise is up the east alligator river, took us right up to Cahill crossing, one side of the river is Kakadu and the other side is Arnhem Land. Our guide was Gleeson who lives in Arnhem Land and shared all his local knowledge of the land and vegetation. The bloke was awesome, he has hunted around 12 crocs in his time with simply a spear made from nature. The tail is apparently the best food, a croc in Arnhem Land tastes like fish as that’s what the crocs eat, but if the croc eats chicken it will taste like chicken. We learnt so much from Gleeson it was so good. I didn’t realise in the indigenous culture there are 16 different “skin groups” and only particular skin groups are allowed to marry the other particular skin group. We got to disembark onto Arnhem Land have a look around and then watch how our guides threw spears, they had a good arm on them. The one thing I was hoping to get on this trip was some indigenous art, however in the galleries/shops nothing screamed at me, which it would want to for the price! At this tour however, Gleeson and others were painting by the river on bark paper using grass as their brush’s and also the colours sourced from stones, they showed us how they did this and it was pretty incredible. Paintings with lines is animals and painting with dots is landscape which is done more down south of NT. Kakadu paint with 3 colours only and in Arnhem Land they paint with four colours. We were able to buy paintings and 100% of the money obviously goes into the artists pocket. One of them actually spent the day painting a piece for Maison on canvas after Maison said he liked the Barra but someone else already purchased, it was so special to spend time with the artists learn their way and then be able to purchase an authentic painting we knew was painted the authentic way! Very special.