Day five has been great. We got to take things a bit slower in the morning before welcoming our children & Eloise’s partner Donald. Our sons Harry and George joined us in settling in, reshuffling equipment, relaxing and doing some planning for the next three days while Eloise and Donnie went exploring the wildlife.
It was nice for all of us to sit & catch up by the fire in one of the nearby pits provided in the evening. We certainly used a lot of mosquito repellant.
Kakadu is still recovering from flooding earlier this year, the worst of it coming in March. There are a lot of popular falls and walks closed as a result, but much more significant and worse of an impact of the floods was worn by the locals & the region.
We spoke to the campground manager Jackie where we were staying, Mardukal Campgrounds, who was directly affected. Her home was submerged and required emergency evacuation, and she told us her requests for support from local authorities and governing bodies went largely unanswered or were insufficient at best. Jackie and her community's experiences gave us an insight into the difficulties experienced by the people living here.
Although there is still so much to see and beautiful surroundings, it does seem it has had an effect on tourism – with less tourers around than our last visit. Yet Mardukal campgrounds is still one of our favourites, we camped here three years ago and love the accessibility it provides for the park (and it also has showers & toilets which is always a plus).
On day six we got in the Tundra and went to Kubara Rock Pools, a 6km return walk with changing scenery, clear rockpools, dry rainforest and a dramatic mountain backdrop.
We stopped for a picnic lunch on the side of the rockpools. They looked so inviting, but we stayed a safe distance & extra weary of any crocodiles.
We did get to see some crocs on a Sunset Yellow Water Cruise – a two hour boat tour along the Alligator River. We saw this four metre croc bathing in the sun before moving into the water.
We saw multiple others swim past on the trip.
Not only crocs, we were also lucky enough to see hundreds of birds of many different species. We saw a magnificent sunset to finish and would highly recommend this tour from Yellow Water Cruises.
Unreal day, off to bed early for a big day tomorrow.