4. Kakadu National Park: for any area in the park, see the website: http://www.travelnt.com/ and enter the searh function under Kakadu.Yellow Water is the South Alligator River and is within the Kakadu National Park . We caught an early morning cruise at 7.30 am in one of two flat bottom covered boats with fifty other people in each boat. The boats cruised out along the river as the sun was slowly coming up along in the east. The water was a like glass …. only broken by the wake of the boat. The early morning was too early to see crocodiles sunbaking on the banks as the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature. We saw many kinds of birds: egrets, jabiru, sea eagles, magpie geese on the higher floodplain.
The guide was saying that had we had come in the Wet season four months earlier, the water would have been four to six metres higher and the floodplain would have been covered with water. Water coming down the river would flood over the banks and among all the trees in the background for hundreds of square kilometres. Then in four months it drains away in the Dry and exposes the floodplain again. The green comes back and the migratory birds flock in again.
Yellow Water is 7.5 kilometres off the Kakadu Highway, Kakadu. Yellow Water, a land-locked billabong brimming with native flora and fauna, is part of one of World Heritage-listed parks: Kakadu National Park. Located near the small settlement of Cooinda, Yellow Water is home to crocodiles, wild horses, buffalo and other wildlife. The billabong, which floods to join other waterways during the wet season, also attracts millions of migratory birds each year, including jacana, egrets, jabiru, sea eagles, magpie geese and many other native species. Paperbark forests, pandanus and fresh water mangroves line the shore, and the water is dotted with beautiful pink and white waterlilies. Explore the billabong by boarding a wildlife cruise, or enjoy an unforgettable Top End sunset from the viewing platform. A trip to Kakadu is not complete without a visit to Yellow Water.
The guide was saying that had we had come in the Wet season four months earlier, the water would have been four to six metres higher and the floodplain would have been covered with water. Water coming down the river would flood over the banks and among all the trees in the background for hundreds of square kilometres. Then in four months it drains away in the Dry and exposes the floodplain again. The green comes back and the migratory birds flock in again.
Yellow Water is 7.5 kilometres off the Kakadu Highway, Kakadu. Yellow Water, a land-locked billabong brimming with native flora and fauna, is part of one of World Heritage-listed parks: Kakadu National Park. Located near the small settlement of Cooinda, Yellow Water is home to crocodiles, wild horses, buffalo and other wildlife. The billabong, which floods to join other waterways during the wet season, also attracts millions of migratory birds each year, including jacana, egrets, jabiru, sea eagles, magpie geese and many other native species.
Paperbark forests, pandanus and fresh water mangroves line the shore, and the water is dotted with beautiful pink and white waterlilies. Explore the billabong by boarding a wildlife cruise, or enjoy an unforgettable Top End sunset from the viewing platform. A trip to Kakadu is not complete without a visit to Yellow Water.
1. Northern Territory June 2006:
Ken and Harriet’s short holiday from 1st-13th June 2006, whereby we:
- Flew up to Darwin from Brisbane on the 1st June and hired a camper van
- Then went down to Kakadu National Park for four days … a Park of rivers, floodplains, cliffs and Aboriginal rock art etc. over hundreds of square kms.
- Then drove back to Darwin
- Then we caught the train = the Ghan down to Alice Springs (1000 kms. +) which is in Central Australia
- We stopped off before Alice Springs on the way down, for four hours to visit by boat the Katherine Gorge
- Then on a small bus tour to Ayres Rock for several days … Ayres Rock is 500 kms. south of Alice Springs ….one day to get down there, three days camping out and half a day to get back
- Then we flew back to Brisbane by the 13th June ….. Alice Springs to Sydney then onto Brisbane
