Darwin Australia, Kakadu National Park!

When me and rob got to the airport i had my bag searched at customs! although we think it might have just been for their training purposes, not sure! they searched my bag completely taking everything out and then they found my badges that i got to put on our rucksacks, which are wrapped in newspaper which we think is why they searched. Anyway darwin is such a pretty little town, it has a main road with mostly bar/restaurants and seating areas outside and other shops down it, it is about 35degrees here! its tropical this time of year is the end of the wet season so not as much rain but is perfect for our trip to kakadu! because the flood plains are smaller and not completely flooded waterfalls and roads, but then with the wet there is more wildlife and wetlands and plenty of crocs mate! we went on a jumping crocodile tour! it was a cruise down the adelaide river, so beautiful. There are crocodiles and marshlands down and off the river. The crocs know the boats now they come out if they here it (sometimes as they are shy animals and they have to be very hungry) and they hold sticks with string with meat at the end and splash it in the water the crocs watch it for a while and then they lift the stick so they have to jump for the meat and u get a fantastic view of the croc! the biggest one we saw was 4 meters long! but they can get up to 6 meters usualylly if they are old. we learnt about the history of crocs in oz. and then we went to a snake farm and rob held a black headed snake really ugly thing, i just stood tkaing loads of pics! then we went on our four wheel drive adventure! which drove over 3 rivers, the adelaide river, mary river andsouth alligator river (called that coz of something to do with explorors to oz as there are no alligators in oz). there is 3 bridges which go over each river, we drove over each bridge, at this time of the year all rivers were submerged! and on some parts the river overflowed on the road but the 4wd made it through! we saw a rare type of heron birds feeding in the river which there are also crocodiles in we couldnt get out of the car incase the crocs jump out as they can jump very quickly and fast and to the side! we had lunch in the park. then our leader told us a story about a tribe "waramol" who are now extinct because of the arrival of white men in (the coal mines in kakadu which take up 2thousand km of the 20 thousand km national park) they needed the aboriginals to work for them in the mines, and as they could not offer them money, food or land they offered them opium, alcohol and cigaretts. basically this is evil in their culture but eventually it took over the tribe which culture of hunting etc quickly fell apart and there was only one person "baramundie charley" who did take any opium and he was the last survivor. as the culture is that when the tribe dies, the knowledge stays with the tribe and goes back into the land forever, as only people who gain the respect of the tribe can know about them. he did not say hardly anything about the tribe but he did do aboriginal rock art of the stories that were important to the tribe to preserve the stories forever was most important to him. some of the paintings we do not know what they mean, it can only be guessed at. they are so beautiful, some are 20,000 years old. 2 paintings baramundie charley said were done by the spirits the meemee spirit, if this is true it wud be up to 50,000 years old which skeptics and some scientists say is impossible as as the painting was done in white paint it wud not be able to last that long as white paint is the least durable. there is one of a gun which is 150 years old when white man arrived in kakadu killing the animals. there is also x-ray rock art which is e.g a fish skeleton and insides to keep knowledge of how to kill and eat food etc, then there is decoratiove such as head wear, and detailed, and descriptive which is art that tells the story of a significant event in their tribe. but it also tells moral techings for the tribe. there is also handprints which are left by visiting tribes who may need food from other tribes land, or generation hand prints., tere is one rock that has 85 hand prints on it (generational) as it is everytime a boy turns to man his handprint is put on it. They would put the paint in their mouth and spray it out like spray paint. We also learnt about kinship laws as incsest was very wrong to them and forbidden in the tribes. They carefully planned who to marry by keeping generations in their mind, as no written language and it was never recorded by baramundie charley who beleived it dies with the tribe. Then we went to nourlangie rock, which was beautiful. Out of a group of 12 people only 4 people made it to the top, i was the only girl to make it to the top! We camped in "yellow water" we had nice tents. Where we were camping was right next to one of the rivers where crocs are found. Our leader once got in the river for fun and pulled out a 2 meter baby croc! he was crazy!we drove in the moring and it took us 2 hours to get to Yurmikmik in kakadu. We went to the marrawal plateau the area of stone basically, huge stones! cant really describe, and we went trecking for an hour to find a waterfall, we went through kurramundie creek, to get to motar car falls and motar car falls creek! A HUGE WATERFALL! We all got in and had a swim! it was pure freshwater you can actually drink the water is a it is so pure.we had to climb over huge rock boulders to get there. We then went to another waterfall that one was a bit dirty water only because there were trees roots in the water as they grew up from the lagoon at the side. that one was called marlins rockhole which is not on the map as they dont want people to know about it! but everyone seemed too! it was funny as i took a pic of the sign outside the waterfall area which said caution crocodiles!!!!!! but our leader said he doubted there would be in that bit coz they wouldnt go over rocks they preffered marshlands! at this point we were right at the south point of kakadu and had to drive way back up north of kakadu to get transferred back to darwin. on the way back we stopped for petrol and there was a wallaby (a smaller kangaroo) at the side of the road. as everyine was waiting at petrol station, i snuck over there and got so close to it i just sat there while it munched on grass and i took pics of it, it was a young one and was so cute!!!!! then rob came over and got close but it got scared and hopped back into the bush! that was amazing to be so close to wildlife. then on the way to see termite mounds in the bush our group leader got out his diggeredoo and played it while driving!!!!! he was very good! slightly scared, but the roads are so straight that it wasnt hard for him! then we saw termite mounds which were huge!! and learnt about them. then our leader started eating them saying they tasted like pepper! yum yum! haha rob had one so did a few others. we took pics of each other by the mound. then justin the group leader went into the bush looking for green ants to eat saying they tasted like lime!!! he came back and ate a few then so did a few others and rob did it was funny. While waiting for our transfer 4 wheel drive back to Darwin our leader played the diggereydoo for us, he was so good at it! We leave tommorow for Uluru Alice Springs!