Aug 31, 2012

T H E N   

after getting back from Kakadu on Tuesday afternoon, I turned around on Thursday night and flew back to Darwin to go back to Kakadu for work .. ! 

This time since it was for work so I got to go with Ruby and it coincided with collecting Kate Matthews and Donald Russell from Melbourne and taking them with us ...
And this time the trip was to just over the border from Kakadu into Arnhem Land to a community called Gunbalanya where they hold an annual festival called Stone Country. (check out some photos)
Ruby and I went to the Travelling Yarns Forum hosted by Injalek Arts - the art centre at Gunbalanya -
here we are wearing basket hats

later got to see the bands playing as well as some bungul and Donald in the spear throwing contest ...
what a throw eh

The most exciting part of the trip was Cahill's Crossing which is a tidal river that separates Kakadu from  Gunbalanya. The timing of your crossing depends on the low and high tides - we of course arrived bang on high tide so as we waited for the river to subside enough to safely cross we watched 6 large crocodiles only metres from the road and bank catching fish and generally looking scary and 
incredible






we also checked out Ubirr Rock again 




on the road at sunset 

now we are all back in Yirrkala once again and Kate and Donald are here for a couple of weeks visiting.   Tomorrow night we are launching the Seven Sisters at Buku-Larrnggay with the Garma attendees in attendance so that will be interesting ...  special ... daunting 
B U T   right now we are off to Goanna Lagoon for a swim and a picnic and a beer  woo   - 

After the run around in Darwin for two days seeing the yirrkala art in its various locations - we took a holiday camping at Kakadu National Park with my parents who jumped in the back of the troopy to travel with us but sensibly got a cabin rather than a tent to sleep in
this is Yellow Waters which is so beautiful - actually every place in Kakadu was beautiful. Here we took a walk and the following morning at 645am we took a boat cruise to see crocs and birds

we walked to the top of the rock at Nourlangie to see an amazing view. 

we did the walk to Jim Jim Falls for an amazing swim in a canyon

we drove through the river to get to Twin Falls to see the amazing waterfall and clear clear water
croc skull 
Twin Falls
iggy at twin falls






this is the 645am boat cruise, amazing





sailor on the boat

jabiru, our new favourite bird and one that Sailor and Kade later saw a crocodile eat ...

croc!
we saw some amazing rock art at Ubirr - and watched the sun go down from the top





tasmanian tiger !









on the monday morning we said goodbye to my folks and did the two day drive back to yirrkala along the dirt road. We stayed one night at Mainrou River camping and the next morning saw buffalos. donkeys, wild horses, baby broglas and kangaroos ... amazing!
buff
donks