Day 18 Katherine – Kakadu - Cagudju Lodge

We stopped at Katherine for supplies. It has a wide range of shops, plenty of servos and some places to visit on our return.

Cagudju Lodge, Kakadu,  caters for fly in tourists with the restaurant menus costing $150 per person which at least included wine. We settled on the A’van restaurant.

We are now in the land of salties and there are a few about as we saw later. Yellow Water is a picturesque wetland with plenty of fish, birds and maybe some small salties.

Crocodile safe walkway

 

The Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre has an excellent exhibition showing the life and activities of the traditional owners. They now work very closely with the Parks Service to manage Kakadu. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs. The other centre, Bowali, shows the history and nature of the land where we were allowed to take photographs.

We had a guided talk from a Njanjma ranger at Ubirr in the East Alligator Region which is right on the border of Arnhem Land. Once explained, the rock paintings for an encyclopaedic history and guide to the land. They told hunters which food was available in the area and recorded the clan culture for when they could eat certain types of food. They also recorded the punishments for breaking the laws. The laws seem harsh by our standards but they were the way the clans enforced their land management to secure a food supply all year round. They also enforced a strict marriage compatibility, presumably to preserve gene pool for their limited populations. It is interesting how our civilised perspective can blind us to a lot of knowledge from a different type of culture.

Our guide told us that his ‘Black man name’ was Wambirja and his ‘White man name’ was Grant

Original rock artwork shown on the above signs

Senior clan members ‘own’ particular parts of the rock painting library and they teach the young about the stories. We over-heard an Australian tour guide talking about the rock art. He was doing a good job but we learned more of the meaning from our guide.

White man arriving with guns

Top left of this picture is the rock Crocodile Dundee stood on as he whirled the bull roarer to summon help

Wambirja also told us how his people use some of the plants and materials. He kept stressing the distinction between ‘women’s business’ and ‘men’s business’ telling us that he should not be demonstrating some of the uses of the plants and could get into trouble. He introduced us to the delicacy of green ants. They made a refreshing titbit and tasted a bit like ascorbic acid.Cahills Crossing looked tranquil and obviously a good place for fish.

We spotted a slide from a reasonable sized crocodile which was probably a saltie.

Slide marks

White tracker up a tree

We looked but could not see the croc although we later saw two salties swimming up the South Alligator River.

A bit of local ingenuity for smoothing the corrugations on the unsurfaced roads.

 The rangers have a program of burning so the new growth is encouraged which in turn brings animals for food. They manage their fires so they are ‘cool’ and do not destroy the landscape.

The outcome seems to be plenty of new growth each year. It is interesting to contemplate why we have different fire management regimes in places like Kinglake and whether a change might yield a safer outcome.

The fires also flush out small animals so there is a general feeding frenzy for the raptors.