SYDNEY BROOME TRIP 2006 - Saturday 3 June to Friday 9 June

SYDNEY BROOME TRIP 2006

Saturday 3 June to Friday 9 June

Darwin to Jabiru National Park

Blog 6

We had dinner on the wharf in for our last night in Darwin and it was a beautiful sunset.

On our way to Jabiru in Kakadu National Park we stopped for a walk on a suspension bridge at Mary River. As we continued we could see that there was obviously a lot of damage from Cyclone Monica with lots of trees down everywhere and still a lot of water around. This is why the Aborigines call this the knock down season. There was a lot of smoke in the air over Jabiru due to the burning off that the Aborigines carry out at the beginning of every dry

One of the must do sites in Kakadu is Ubirr which is famous for its rock art. The ranger Russell was a local aboriginal and his stories and explanations of the rock art were fantastic. He explained about the art and the kinship system. We saw the Main Art Gallery, The Rainbow Serpent and then the Lookout which overlooked the plains and the escarpment. The day was beautiful and the lookout was superb.

We stopped for lunch at Cahill Crossing and ate under the shade of a big tree by the East Alligator River. We could only drive across the Cahill Crossing into Arnhem Land but had to drive back again as a permit is needed to enter Arnhem Land.

We took a cruise on the East Alligator River which is on the border between Kakadu and Arnhem Land and is part of Kakadu. Our Aboriginal guide, Roman explained the use of the plants, how they hunt and live and the history of the land and rocks. The Paper bark trees are used for many things. The bark is used to sleep on as it is soft and keeps you dry and also keeps the insects away. It is also used as an antiseptic for wounds. The bark is bound to the wound with the inside of the bark on the wound. They also use the trunks to build canoes, the bark to wrap their fish in and cook it and the leaves of different paperbark trees as herbs in their cooking.

They use the yellow flowers of the Beach Hibiscus once they have fallen off the tree and turned maroon to cure gastric. The wood of the Kapok Tree is very buoyant and is used for fishing spears. It is also used for their fire sticks. They use bamboo stems for spears and iron bark for spear heads. The string from the Kapok tree is used to tie things together and Pandanus palm leaves are woven baskets. When the bark and leaves of the fresh water mangrove are ground into a pulp and placed into a pond or lagoon the fish are starved of oxygen and just float to the surface so they can just be picked out of the water. When they have collected all the fish they want they remove the pulp, stir up the water to re-oxygenate the water and the fish revive.

So many of the wonderful things to see were still inaccessible by road so we took a Scenic Flight to Jim Jim Falls, Twin Falls, Double Falls and over the uranium Ranger Mine, the escarpment and Arnhem Land. It was easy to see the path of Cyclone Monica the downed trees looked like someone had thrown a box of matches down.

Mike, John and I decided to do a guided tour into Arnhem Land which allowed us to go to and see places that we otherwise were forbidden to see.

We crossed the East Alligator River at Cahills Crossing and then drove another 70km or so to the community of Oenpelli. There are about 1000 people living in this community and it had the usual Arts Centre.

We had stopped on the way at a wetland to look out on the landscape. It is quite different from Kakadu National and is known as the stone country.

Our Aboriginal guide was Wilfred and his son Billy Boy who were both barefoot. It is amazing how they manage to walk on the terrain where we went. We had trouble in our walking shoes. He was very knowledgeable about his stories and would not answer questions that did not relate to his stories out of respect to the other peoples stories.

He took us to painting sites, burial sites, a male initiation site and we had explanations of all these things. We had morning tea of tea and biscuits at the top of the cliff in a most spectacular place. The scenery and the feeling of being there is indescribable.