Kakadu day 3 and 4 - Mardugal

Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th June

Mardugal camp is the bush camp alternative to Cooinda. It has toilets and solar heated showers, and if you were tent camping there are some lovely secluded sites. It wasn’t very busy and we had a good shady spot....we always go for a spot not too far from the ‘ablution block’!
On the way in, the scenery was beautiful.

 lots of tall termite mounds

 lots of interesting plants ..pandanus palms with spiral pattern on the trunks

Kurrajong trees

and really pretty grasses

Unfortunately, because of the late wet season, the walk there around a billabong was closed, (the path was under water and there was danger of crocodiles), so we went into Cooinda to buy tickets for the sunset Yellow Water cruise.

On the way, we went to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre which was really wonderful. It gave us a real feeling of the way the aborigines lived, with their culture and their knowledge of the bush.

(Other author takes over here for Yellow Water report)

This cruise was the best “nature type” tour I have ever been on! It was absolutely sensational!

Yellow Water is a huge billabong and flood plain fed from the South Alligator River. The beautiful still waters with waterlilies of different colours and sizes, lined with freshwater mangroves (which are actually not mangroves at all), and paperbarks and pandanus is quite stunning.

Crocs abound, and the boat often gets to within a few metres of them. The tourists just love it.

The cruise boat, which is a flat bottomed aluminium type and holds about 30, is skippered by the tour guide, who was very knowledgeable, and we think was probably a graduate of some sort of environmental studies. He was very good with the birds, taught me things I didn’t know, and only made one mistake with ID !

Can you see the Green Tree snake?

Some wild horses were grazing near the water's edge

The sheer numbers of birds as well as the different species is almost overwhelming but the highlights for me were both Wandering and Plumed Whistling ducks (in their 1000’s),

Pied Herons (new species for me), Little, Intermediate and Great Egrets all to be seen together, which is very rare, and a great help in differentiating them. Jabiru stork, Magpie Geese, Jacanas, Brolgas, Green Pigmy Geese, Burdekin ducks, and wonderful views for White bellied Sea Eagle.

That’s enough hey ! (Been talking to too many Q’landers !)


We chose the sunset tour on the advice of campers we met at Gunlom. They were so impressed with the morning cruise, that they went on the evening one as well, and thought the evening cruise was even better. At $85 per head each time, we thought that was a very good recommendation. After the cruise which lasts two hours we thought it was excellent value !

C went overboard, just in a photographic sense, thank goodness, with the crocs and sunset !

Correction: The Wild Tiger butterfly I mentioned previously is actually a Blue Tiger. Got them muddled. (Sorry Amy)

(Back to number one author/editor)

Apparently they didn’t know the area had waterlilies until most of the water buffalo were shot (because of the threat of Brucellosis spreading to the cattle on nearby stations in the early 90’s). Once the water was not all churned up and the billabong floor left intact, the lilies have proliferated and there are several different types found there as well as other aquatic flowers.

Next morning we packed up, and then went on a guided walk for a couple of hours through the woodland with one of the rangers, which was excellent.
There was dry Spear grass about 2m tall, and the guide discussed how the aborigines used to start to cool burn the land when a particular bright orange Eucalypt was in flower  a calendar plant) – so that they could then walk over the land, (bare feet of course!) looking for their food.

Seedbank girls, can you imagine walking through that grass when it has its seeds on it?!!!

Green ants were nesting quite low in a shrub along the track.

We heard that the mozzies are frightful at Merl camp - they were pretty bad here - so we decided to go to Jabiru and use that as a base to explore the rest of the area.
 
On the way, we went to check out Muirella camp and decided to stay there to go to see Nourlangie area. Again, the walk was closed
 

 

Beautiful tall fern-leaf grevilleas all along the road

Late in the afternoon we went to see Nourlangie Rock with all its rock paintings. The walk was in the shadow of the enormous rock formations and caves, so was really cool on a rather hot day.

 It was a strange feeling, and really interesting, to see some of the rock art that was painted thousands of years ago, and to learn of their meanings....and the scenery was stunning.

Lots of fine leafed grevilleas up at the lookout, too.

RJG...Bird highlight was about 30 RTBC (Red Tailed Black Cockatoo). They were drinking where the water was crossing over the road as we went back to camp.

I think it was worth driving 4526 km for sites like this!!


Also saw a Partridge Pigeon on the way in....another first.