Kakadu National Park, Australia – A True Test!!

While traveling in Australia, we bought an airline pass that allowed us to make stops to several cities around the country.  After stopping in Alice Springs to visit Ayers Rock, outside of Yulara, we left the sunny, breezy, dry desert air to arrive in cloudy, hot, humid, tropical Darwin.  The air that hit us as we alighted from the plane was so dense that I could barely breath, it felt heavy enough to crush us!!  Darwin was dubbed “the beer drinking capital of Australia” and I could believe that was true, since one would need to stay permanently drunk in order to anesthetize themselves against the intolerable heat!  That night, on the street outside the window of our desperately hot hotel room, the sticky night air was filled with yelling and cursing from many of those drunks and I was overcome with a feeling of unreality, it was like being immersed in an old movie set deep in the tropics.

Our intention for stopping in Darwin was to use it as a supply base for a camping trip to Kakadu National Park.  As suggested in our Lonely Planet guide book, we rented an air-conditioned car, complete with camping gear which included a small pup tent, a stove, pots and pans, eating utensils, cooler, etc. 

We drove our rental car the 153 km to Kakadu and just as we entered the park we were stunned by the sight of a field full of 100’s of huge termite mounds all constructed in a different style.  Many were over 5 feet tall while others were 10 feet or more.  We had previously seen 1000’s of smaller ones, but those giant ones were a sight to behold.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the air outside felt even more stifling than it had in Darwin!  It was so humid that even standing still, you were soon soaking wet!  In addition to the heat were the abundant mosquitoes and we were soon wondering what the heck we were doing there!  Maybe we should just ride around all day in our air conditioned car!

Braving the elements, we found a camping spot, set up our tent, then hightailed it to the garden restaurant in Cooinda for a nice cold beer.  I had always hated the taste of beer, but I was ready to drink anything cold and wet at that point!

The most positive thing I could say about Kakadu, at that point, was that it was teeming with interesting wildlife!  During our late afternoon walk along the picturesque and mysterious billibong (swamp) we saw many birds, paddling, fishing, standing, soaring, perching, flapping, honking, and tweeting.   We saw different sizes of bounding or grazing kangaroos and wallabies, scampering Goanna and other lizards, and large, colorful insects.  Also lots of signs warning of the salt water crocodiles that inhabited the waters. It was reported that Kakadu was home to more than 25 species of frog, 50 types of mammals, 55 kinds of fish, 75 species of turtles, 275 kinds of birds and 4500 types of insects!

Back at camp we cooked our dinner over our rented camp stove and ate amidst the mosquito swarms.  We thought that when the sun went down we would get some relief from the heat, but by some terrible practical joke of nature it felt even hotter!!  Darkness began to fall as we washed the dishes, and the mosquitoes began to come in such huge clouds that even 100% DEET did nothing to deter them.  Those were killer mozzies, the death squad, that nothing would keep away!!!!!  We made a dive for the tent, not even bothering to finish picking up after dinner, but there was no way we could get into that tent without taking a few hundred mosquitoes with us.  We were being sucked dry inside of our tiny sweat box. Sky started hunting and killing the tormentors as I held the flashlight to show him where they were.  After a few minutes of that we were both awash with sweat from the exertion of the killing spree.  I was freaking out with the heat and Sky with the bugs.  With all the swatting at the sides of the tent to get the mozzies, it started falling down around us, but we weren’t about to go out and fix it with the swarm just on the other side of the screen.  I started getting claustrophobic in that tiny space, because with the tent only inches from my face, I felt that I was suffocating.  I also knew that I couldn’t go outside without being eaten alive.  I was trapped, and I had to keep telling myself to calm down and breathe so I wouldn’t freak out!  It was horrible!!!

Just as we had killed most of the mosquitoes and I had gotten my breath into some kind of normal rhythm again we both had to pee!  I tried to put it out of my mind, but the harder I tried, the more my bladder ached and I was the first one to get up the nerve to leave the safety of the tent.   Outside, it was definitely cooler, but I couldn’t stop to enjoy it, as I ran to the bathrooms and back as fast as I could.  Then Sky took his turn at the bathroom dash.  Back in the tent we had to start the swat and sweat routine all over again. Eventually we murdered the last mozzie, our bladders were empty,  and we tried to get some sleep in the perspiration and grit.  We knew we weren’t the only ones suffering when we heard the people in the van next to us moaning, and swearing and slapping up a storm as well.  Maybe the Dingos were complaining too as we could hear them howling at the full moon.

We were up in the dark to the beep of the alarm on my watch, as we were scheduled to be

at the Yellow River Sunrise Cruise at 5 AM.  Since there was no electricity at the campground, we had to make our way to the toilets with a flashlight being careful not to disturb any sleeping crocodiles that might be in the area.  In the bathrooms, large-eyed, ghost colored lizards and frogs hung stationary on the walls, and as the moving flashlight beam caught them in its glare it was hard not to be startled!  You knew you were surrounded by creatures in the darkness that you couldn’t see and it was pretty creepy. 

We quickly threw on the same dirty clothes, jumped into the mosquito infested car and rushed to Cooinda to meet our tour.  As soon as the boat motored onto the winding river, where there was a little breeze, the mozzies miraculously stopped bothering us!!  What a relief!! 

The relaxing and informative trip ended all too soon and we were returned to the heat and mosquito hell of dry land.  We dashed back to camp, quickly threw our gear in the car and drove to another section of the park to find the Aboriginal rock art galleries that Kakadu was well-known for.

When we finally returned to the car, we realized that we were almost out of gas, which meant that we had to drive to the town of Jabiru, a newly constructed village which was built to accommodate the workers from the nearby uranium mines.  Though small, it was nicely constructed with modern homes, hotels, restaurants, clean streets, a park and a lake. Sky, who almost never likes to swim, had been saying how much he’d love to take a dip, if only there was a crocodile-free place to do it.  Voila!!  Just as we drove out of the gas station we came upon a picnic area and swimmable lake free of crocs!   Ask and you shall find!  The water, however, was far from refreshing.  It was more like swimming in a big hot tub full of slimy weeds!!  The only relief came when we got out of the water and the thin breeze blew on our wet bodies.  It was the coolest we had been in weeks.

We hung out under the trees at the lake all afternoon before we went in search of a campsite for the night.  We soon found a free camping area right next to the billibong.  We were determined to be better prepared for the mosquito war that night so we set up camp, put the stove out, lit mozzie coils and went for a walk down the nature trail near camp. The path went out along the billibong, then into the marsh which was loaded with blooming Lotus Lilies.   We spotted the tracks of Water Buffalo, horse and pig but we didn’t see any of the animals themselves in the head high tall grass.

We got back to camp as the sun was setting to find that our carefully laid plans had been thwarted by ants!  A local community, eggs and all, had moved into our stove during the short time we had been gone!  It was a real chore trying to get them out, as they just didn’t want to leave.  First, Sky lit the stove, but they didn’t seem to mind the heat, then he tried pouring water over it and that seemed to make them want to move to a drier location.  We set the stove on the fireplace and since it would no longer light due to its bath, we had to eat our beans cold, out of the can.

We managed to stay outside longer than the night before with two mosquito coils going, and our bodies soaked in bug dope, but couldn’t endure another minute of it by the time the clock hit 7:20.  We made sure to empty our bladders, and when we dove into the tent we were better organized so we didn’t  bring as many mosquitoes in with us. Sky calmly went about killing the interlopers which meant that he didn’t bring the tent down on top of us like he had the previous night when he was in such a frenzy.  Even with all that new behavior it took us hours to get to sleep.  There was something about the steady drone of millions of blood suckers on the screen next to our ears that made us uneasy.  It was as though they were just waiting there saying, “we will get you, we will get you!” 

 The next morning, we planned our every move to minimize our time of exposure to the insect hordes.  At the count of: one… two… three…. go!  We unzipped the tent, dove out, took it down without folding it up, threw everything into the car and were out of there in about 7 minutes with a car full of mozzies that we shooed out as we drove.  We headed straight to the lake in Jabiru to take a cleanup swim and eat breakfast, but because it was still so early the mosquitoes were still out in numbers.  In order to give them a moving target, we decided to clean and organize the car.  When we opened the car door, however, we found that our insect problems had multiplied.  An army of ants were crawling all over the back seat and our belongings!  It appeared that, during the night, our ant friends had moved back into the stove we had left sitting on the fireplace, and were now our, not so happy, traveling companions.  We had to take everything out of the car, remove the ants one by one and wash out the stove three times before we got them all out.  Thankfully, they weren’t a very aggressive variety of ant, and didn’t give us too many bites while we were removing them.  Yet again we were unable to use the stove to cook ourselves breakfast, so we ate some bread and butter instead of the toast and eggs we had planned.  That was it, the last straw!  We looked at each other and said, “let’s get out of here!!!!” 

We took off towards Darwin to find an air-conditioned hotel with cool air, cool shower, soft beds, no bugs and damn the expense!!!  It was HEAVEN!!  

You were beautiful Kakadu, but you were a true test for us intrepid travelers!  Little did we know that there would be many more tests to come!!

Until next time….be wild and fearless…..and don’t let the mozzies get you!!!!