06.30hrs Aileen and Stephen set off in a pre arranged taxi to town on their way to a 3 day tour of Kakadu National Park, Katherines Gorge, and Litchfield National park.
The tour was in a 4X4 Toyota land cruiser and our guide for the 3 days was Max, an australian guy. There were 4 others in the jeep besides ourselves, 2 OBE's (as they referred to themselves, and means "over bloody eighty") two ladies from Melbourne, and a mother and daughter from Rome. One of the OBE's was Fay Daniels who's forefathers came from Ireland and her brother in law wife was a Kathleen O'Flaherty from Tralee and was one of the original "Rose of Tralee" girls. Small world...
The day was beautiful yet again, but less humidity than in the past few days. Our first call was in the wetlands, out along the dam, where we were a few days ago, but it was still amazing, the pelicans, the ducks, the geese, the snakes, the wild pigs, the finches were there in their thousands, the noise was just wonderful.
Nine years ago, on a trip to Cairns, we were told about a frog that was introduced into the Cairns area to combat a weavel that was attacking the roots of the sugar cane plants, however the frog did nothing to the weavel, but adapted to the climate of Australia very well and spread like wildfire. The blinking frog was poisonous and anything that eat it died rapidly. Now this frog has spread up as far as Kakadu National Park and is having a devastating effect on the wild life here. Frogs are a major food supply for snakes, crocks, and lots of birds, but its the snakes are hit worst, and their numbers in the area have reduced significantly in the last few years.
We then traveled to the - South Alligator River - a big, big river, and we were now 100km inland and it was still tidal, here we met Donna Cullen from Armagh in Northern Ireland, and a couple of Yanks from "17 mile drive" in California. Our Margarets brother in law lives in -17 mile drive- and is the home of "Pebble Beach" golf club.
We did a cruise up the River, and our guide for the trip was Natasha who's father is Aboriginal and her mother was white. She was excellent and was able to explain all about their hunting techniques, and living habits, with practical demonstrations of throwing spears.
Eventually after an interesting day, we retired to the designated hotel, this was an interesting building, built with corrugated metal, as most buildings are built of this material out here, and colored green, but it was designed in the shape of a crocodile. The hotel is owned by the Aboriginal and operated by "holiday inn". In fact, the whole region of Kakadu and the Northern territories were handed back to the Aboriginal clans about 40 years ago and are jointly developed and promoted by the governments and the natives alike. This was a great idea, as the natives have a great respect for their land and look after it properly, they still retain all their normal hunting methods and their aboriginal laws are extremely tough.
We had dinner in the Hotel, a great buffet, with as much food as you could eat.. and at about 35euros each represented good value. We had an early night. Neil, remained in Darwin and did some local exploring and enjoyed the day.
That's it.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)