FLYING COLOURS
ONLY GOT A DAY TO SPARE IN DARWIN? THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE SOUL-STIRRING KATHERINE AND KAKADU
If there is one place in Australia that can get the blood pumping and the soul stirred, it is Kakadu National Park — Australia’s largest, and dual World Heritagelisted for its cultural and environmental values.
While many may consider the midst of a tropical summer not an ideal time to visit, if you ask the locals, it is the best time.
Rain has fallen, billabongs are full, waterfalls are roaring and all creatures great and small are celebrating the season of plenty.
But I’m here just for the weekend and, while reaching Kakadu in three hours by sealed road from Darwin is doable, I figured I was limited by my time to do such a place justice.
Not so it seems.
While chatting to locals about the size of crocs, where to land million-dollar barramundi and the prolific number of flowers blooming and birds buzzing in the billabongs at this time of year, I also learned of a tour run by Kakadu Air.
It packs in an aerial tour of Kakadu, a stopover in Katherine for lunch and a cruise in famed Nitmiluk Gorge.
After a brisk wake-up call, I find myself positioned as co-pilot next to our affable Kakadu Air pilot Dave, who assured me I would not be required to fly the aircraft unless he happened to pass out.
I learned pretty quickly that Dave’s humour was to be one of the highlights of the tour, complemented by his enthusiastic storytelling abilities; a mix of first-hand local and learned legend with a few urban myths thrown in.
As soon as we were airborne, the view took over. A tapestry of colours and textures reeled beneath us as the ancient NT landscape, enriched by the Gudjewg (monsoon) season, revealed a breathtaking panorama blossoming with life.
Kakadu’s traditional landowners the Bininj and Mungguy people celebrate six seasons, with three occurring over the tropical summer. Gudjewg, from January to March, is believed to be the “true wet”.
We crisscrossed over the jade green winding river routes of the Adelaide, South Alligator and Mary River National Park river systems, which Dave shared are attributed to the indigenous dreamtime leg-end of the Rainbow Serpent.
Coiling and carving her way through the landscape, she is said to be the source of all life; protector of land and people, but also capable of highly destructive forces if not treated with the respect traditional owners have for their land.
For now, however, she is gentle and winding, flooding wetlands that are filled with flocks of birds, while brumbies and buffaloes graze. We spot the dark ominous shapes skimming just underneath her surface as large crocodiles laze in wait of prey.
I discovered that crocs are measured by the tonne per kilometre here as we passed the infamous Cahills crossing (Google it if you
like your wildlife with a side of gasp).
The crocs are the size of small cars and, while fish are their main food source, they will sweep in to consider human misadventure as a meal too.
Cahills holds the grisly title of the world’s deadliest crossing, but inexplicably this does not deter people from taking chances, igniting the ire of local rangers who simply ask people to read and heed warnings.
On route to the Arnhem Escarpment, the plateau rises sternly from the earth presenting as a majestic tabletop stretching further than our eyes can take in.
We whip past Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls, both spectacular aerial sights during the wet, as tonnes of water thunder down off the escarpment and into the river systems below.
After the Nit Nit Dreaming Cruise in Nitmiluk Gorge, we stop for lunch of lemonmyrtle barramundi at Sugarbag Cafe, overlooking the Katherine River.
It would take days to see what we cover in our flyover. While I am eager to do it by road some day, a flight is a pretty spectacular way to get an insight into just how big this land before time is.