Our second stop in Australia took us down under. Well, we went north actually into Darwin. This area was definitely more like what I imagined Australia to be like although with some major surprises. Every car on the road had a snorkel and often the roads have measuring sticks over 8 feet tall for the rainy season. We rented a campervan and wandered around the outback for several days. It felt very grown up to rent our very own little RV, pick up groceries (using a shopping trolley) and explore a new country on our own terms. Leaving the rental lot was our first adventure. We had to be alert at all times to remind ourselves to drive on the left side of the road. We only messed up once and the oncoming cars were kind enough to let us correct ourselves. It must be a common struggle because there were signs everywhere reminding drivers “Drive on the left in Australia.” Tyler picked it up quickly though. Before we even left the city we spotted large grey parrots with pink bellies on a lamppost. Litchfield national park was our first destination and we managed to see some fun wildlife on the way. I caught sight of a hunched figure with large ears and felt a jolt of electricity jump through me. One doesn’t forget the way their first kangaroo sighting makes ya feel. We also stopped to let a large olive colored snake cross the road. He almost reached from one side to the next. After getting chewed out by the camp host for pulling in at “This Late Hour” (it was 7:30 pm), he let us park our van behind a kind old couple’s RV for the night. Different customs?
Litchfield national park was terrific to explore. I loved waking up in the campervan and looking out my window to see lorikeets chirp around the eucalyptus forest we were camped in and big white cockatoos croaked overhead. The diversity of bird life was a major surprise for me. I don’t know why I assumed the local residents of the dry desert would be hard to spot. We saw more wildlife in 4 days in the Northern Territory than in a month of all of Southeast Asia combined.
Litchfield is knows for its large waterfalls that jump down red rock into dramatic gorges. The desert gives way to lush monsoon jungle along the water edge. We kept looking for flocks of chattering parrots up in the trees only to find that they were actually large fruit bats! Who knew they were so chatty! This area reminded me of southern Utah except that the water in Litchfield was crystal clear. It made swimming super refreshing. Tyler particularly enjoyed jumping off the waterfalls into the clean pools below. A lizard ran across the trail on its back legs for more speed. The day ended with a deep orange Australian sunset. It looked almost like the sky was rusting beautifully before our eyes. It had a different flavor than anywhere else in the world.
Another defining element of the Outback are the termite mounds. Growing up to two stories tall, these pillars are EVERYWHERE! Often I mistook a termite mound for a kangaroo as they were often the same shape and size. Some colonies were just starting out, less than a foot tall. Some were y’all but skinny like a broomstick. And some were tall and flat, oriented to regulate the temperature from the beating sun. These were called “magnetic termite mounds.” The flood plains where they grow look like some spooky cemetery with all the flat sides facing exactly the same direction. It was here that we got a good look at a black cockatoo with a fro and red under feathers. After feeding the ant lions and snapping photos of the globe spiders, we made our way over to Kakadu national park.
Kakadu national park is known for aboriginal cave art and marshland. Waking up to kangaroo grazing around our campervan was an awesome feeling. We took a walk through time as we examined cave paintings of kangaroo, fish, and Tasmanian devils. I loved to see just how different the paintings were from Utah carvings and from the cave in Thailand. It’s easy to see that the land in Kakadu has remained unchanged for centuries. We were thrilled to spot a wild emu on our drive in and flocks of cockatoo passed overhead. I didn’t know they flew in flocks. We went on a short walkabout near a billabong and heard grunting in the tall grass. There’s no large predator in Australia right? The grass rustled and soon a group of wild pigs came out and ran across the trail. We even spied tiny green tree frogs hiding in the spiral palm trees.
We visited a river crossing where at a certain time, the tide reverses the direction of the river. This reversal traps a bunch of fish, which brings predators. “Salties” is what the locals call the giant saltwater crocodiles. They surfed the river, mouths open waiting for fish much like an Alaskan grizzly hunting for salmon. Not about to miss out on the hunt, a giant python appeared, slithering in the water just like they would on land. Right then some cockatoos croaked overhead and the hitter of lorikeets could be heard. We were definitely down under. Our day finished with an evening stroll around the Anbangbang billabong where we spotted a blue winged kookaburra and a pair of those large black cockatoo with red beneath their tail. The sky rusted as we walked and we wrapped up another incredible day.
The names here cracked us up by the way. Think about it, we saw a Kakadu cockatoo near the kangaroo and kookaburra in the anbangbang billabong. Ha ha!
We loved discovering a tiny piece of The Outback for ourselves. It’s an ancient and mysterious place with unexpected surprises.
Walkabout 