Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t written in a bit…I have been doing a lot of traveling to places with little or no internet or even phone service! So let me back track to what I have been up to lately. After my trip to the Northern Territory Museum (on 6/18) I had class the next day & then left to go to the Kakadu National Park on Saturday (6/20). I have to say that I have never seen such beautiful landscape until this 3-day camping trip. When we left Darwin that morning we first went to Fog Dam which is a major floodplain & we saw a lot of different bird species there which was pretty cool.
We then visited the Adelaide River where I saw jumping saltwater crocodiles!! It was so awesome…we got to go out on a boat in the river and the people who took us out would put fresh meat out on a rope which they would hold over the edge of the boat & the crocs would jump right out of the water! These things were massive too…must have been well over 10 ft. long! And don’t worry I have it all on video which I hope to post soon. Another highlight of the trip was the night walk with the rangers where I saw the biggest spiders I have ever seen, and then one of the rangers caught a wild baby croc!
The second day at Kakadu we went on a bunch of hiking trips where we learned about the Aboriginals that lived in the national park. We also learned a lot about conservation efforts for the land & how they deal with the wild fires that are common during the hot, dry summer. At night we sat around the campfire listening to our tour guide play the didjeridoo as he told us some pretty funny Aboriginal stories. For those who don't know what a didjeridoo is, it's an instrument that is made out of a long hollow piece of wood, which usually has wax at the top where you blow into & is naturally hollowed out by termites. According to the Aboriginal belief, only men are allowed to play the didjeridoo & if women play it, they could be punished by getting pregnant! (However, all the girls on the trip attmepted to play it anyway!)
The last day of the Kakadu trip had to have been my favorite. We went on a pretty intense hike to the top of a mountain where we got to swim in gorgeous waterfall pools. The water was so clean with a really intense green color. You could see right to the bottom of the pools which were covered with sand & smooth rocks so I didn’t have to worry about stepping on weird things at the bottom. Then on the way back we stopped to see one of the biggest termite mounds in the area, which are really common in Kakadu. This thing was serously 20+ feet high! And yes I have a picture of that as well! So overall, I had an amazing time at the Kakadu National Park & I highly recommend visiting there if you are ever thinking about going to Australia!
