Of the beaten track and not in our original plans but yolo as this might be the only time we can have this experience as a family so we opted to take full advantage, as we packed the caravan and said goodbye to Darwin, we headed for one of Australia’s largest national parks, knowing that most of the park is closed due to the seasonal weather (wet season) but we would have our family surprise to come.

Kakadu is dual world heritage listed, covers almost 20,000 square kilometres, comprises 4 major river systems, 100’s of animal species and 1000’s of plant life and has been occupied by Aboriginal peoples for about 40,000 yrs. You just can’t comprehend or experience all of this from land, so we took to the air to view this spectacle.

We arrived at our campground in Jabiru, beautifully presented palm tree’s on arrival with the pick of the grounds for our campsite, after a few small manoeuvres to get the van “Belindafied” we unhitched and headed into the town centre. Now that surely doesn’t come as a surprise that we would be heading back to the shops again, but this time it was for a food top up and to get a coffee… little did we know that our expectations were very far beyond what was a) open b) available – both. We did manage to get an afternoon coffee at the Kakadu Crocodile Hotel. The afternoon was all about having a swim in the resort-style lagoon which was by far the best pool we had been in and compared to the natural waterfalls, Hidden Valley Caravan Park Pool or the wave pool on the foreshore in Darwin, this one was at least more refreshing being a tad cooler. RG was BBQing tonight’s dinner when it must have smelt delicious as we soon noticed a wild Dingo x Dog wandering around the park.

7th January 2022, this would be a very adventurous day, a relatively early start to the day as we headed out to our 1st experience, flying over Kakadu in a single propeller aircraft at just over 1500ft. As most of the drivable tracks are closed due to the wet season we thought this would be an awesome way to see the Twin and Jim Jim falls, only seen by air in the wet season, swimmable in the dry season if you dare. Our pilot for the day was Josh, who was very informative during the 60-minute journey, what did we see – Uranium Mine, Lightning Spirit, then we entered Arnhem Land and had 2 warm-up waterfalls – Hole in the Wall / Double Falls, continuing down the natural ridgeline to Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls. On the return trip a couple of interesting points – the croc traps, original rock art (40,000yrs old) and the old airstrip that was used in the filming of Crocodile Dundee. I would highly recommend this experience if you are presented with the opportunity regardless of the season, our pilot Josh was full of information and gave you the impression it was his first flight, emotionally attached to the experience by his storytelling, noting that he also suggested that due to erosion we could come back next year and the landscape would have changed – no 2 flights are the same.

Continuing on from the day before we headed back to our campsite to enjoy some brunch and a swim before getting ready for the second adventure for the day. For this experience, we had to drive about 50km down to Cooinda Lodge where we would embark on the Yellow River cruise to see the beauty of Kakadu from the water and hopefully, see a croc in the wild as well as other wildlife. Dennis our sailor for the evening was a laugh a minute, you got the sense he loved his job and I really enjoyed his sense of humour – well most dads would have ;-). Besides the humour, Dennis was very informative of all aspects of the cruise, the wildlife as it flew past us, the plant life, the history of Kakadu and being a local his own way of telling the story with some great advice for everyone. Now the big question is did we see a croc, we saw 4 – the first was a small croc on the bank, the second happened to be spotted by me as we were cruising backwards to view a Jabiru, then the last 2 were spotted having a water fight in the middle of the river. Our captain for the arvo, Dennis, made the cruise, as I have already mentioned, his knowledge of the cruise is brilliant and we had a very enjoyable time, even if it was another stinker of a day. It would be great to experience this again at another time as our cruise allowed us to travel over what would be land during the dry season and there would be many different animals to view as they return to the billabong.

After a big day, our plan was to head back to our resort for dining but we decided to stay on at the Cooinda Lodge and if we did our research we would have moved the caravan down here for the night – oh well maybe next time. While we enjoyed our meal we had a couple of friendly visitors – tree frogs, a gecko and a snake! yes, lucky for us we were the ones behind the glass for this one, as we left we almost trod on many Cane Toads and finally as I was filling up the car, I noticed an owl staring at me from the station – a little Harry Potter-like.