Day 69 Kakadu National Park part 1

Time to explore the famous Kakadu National Park: for our first day in the national park, we chose the most remote area around Ubirr, just at the border to Arnhem land (only allowed to visit with a permit) as our starting point.

First stop was Cahills Crossing, a street flooded more or less depending on the tide times connecting Ubirr with Arnhem land and known for the salties in the water waiting for the flood (& food) to come in. Arriving at the Crossing, it was pretty disappointing: the walk and lookout-platforms were closed. On the street were signs, pedestrians not allowed beyond a point towards the Crossing. As many other tourists, we then just walked past that sign to the crossing on the street to at least have a look at Cahills Crossing after this long drive to see it. This was our first, but unfortunately not last encounter with Kakadu National Park maintenance closures to full closure of well-known sights for a long time. These sights are still listed in the tourist information sheets, sometimes with a hint on closure (Gunlom waterfalls) and sometimes without (Twin falls creek walk).

Next stop was the Ubirr Rock Art Sites with the Nadab Lookout. It is a nice & easy walk through Rock Art Sites as old as 6000 years BC showing paintings of fish, wallabies, mystical aboriginal spirits and also European settlers. Sometimes the paintings also tell aboriginal stories which were used to educate children e.g. about the danger of salties in the billabongs. The climb up to the Nadab Lookout provides nice views of the surrounding area.

The next walk, the Sandstone walk was completely closed due to fire and burnings in the area. The other walk, the Mangrove walk was only open for a few meters and then closed due too maintenance work, so we could only see some bats before returning to the car park.

Disappointed about 3 of 4 walks/sights closed, we decided to head to the Bowali Visitor Centre to gather some information about the National Park, especially information about which sites, lookouts, walks, etc. are 'temporarily' (for a few days or since a few years, both counts as temporarily here) closed for visitors to plan our next days in the Kakadu National Park more carefully.

On the way back to the accommodation we stopped at Mamukala Wetlands Lookout to watch some birds from a bird watching lookout.