We are on holiday!

Monday 1st August 2022

Today is cruise day! I set the alarm for 5:20, but slept terribly, as I always do when I need to be somewhere super early! This meant we were ready to jump out of bed and go – even the kids. I think we had talked about it so much they just got up and jumped in the car!

We had our pancakes and iced coffee on the drive. We had a buffet breakfast afterwards but that was still a few hours away. We arrived at Cooinda Lodge for the 6:25 pickup, meeting with Andrew and Tegan who camped at Mardugal, and jumped onto the bus.

When we arrived at yellow waters the sky was just starting to lighten, turning the waters a purple colour. A mist hung over the water, giving it a magical feel! The tour guide was a bit of a comedian, but actually quite entertaining and very good. He pointed out the different birds, plenty of crocs, buffalo’s, pigs, cows. The highlights were seeing a few pheasant coucouls, some brolgas, and the jacanas are always cute. Seeing the sunrise over the water was stunning!

Richie and I were fortunate to know a tour guide at yellow waters a while back, when Richie was doing his PhD. Murray took us on a few cruises at the time, which were absolutely amazing. Whilst this morning was beautiful, the environmental degradation from the feral animals was quite shocking. Though we can’t recall if it has gotten much worse, or if Murray took us to different spots when he showed us around, that were more pristine.

The two hour cruise became a bit tricky for the younger kids – though I think Bonnie could have sat on the boat all day! Luckily the guide’s colourful descriptions of animal brutality helped Otis through it, and I spent the later part of the cruise pretending to be a turtle, a brolga, a sea eagle, a crocodile….

We docked around 8:30, and were bused back for breakfast- Otis was particularly excited about this part, and was really hanging out for some toast! The breakfast was fun as buffet breakfasts are, with a complete excess of all sorts of food! Definitely wouldn’t want to do it every day though! 😋

After eating way too much breakfast we went to Mardugal campground to hang out with Andrew and Tegan while they packed up their site, then drove to Angbangbang rock shelter to look at the rock art. Bonnie has been really excited about seeing indigenous rock art, so this place and Ubirr have been high on the list to visit.

The kids were definitely feeling pretty exhausted after this, but we were keen to do a lookout walk, so we bribed them with lollipops then did the Nawurlandja lookout walk. It was tough in the sun, walking up a steep rock face ( particularly for those carrying small children I suspect!). But it is an amazing view, and the kids quickly forgot their exhaustion to clamber about the rocks and find places to hide under the rocks!

We drove back to Jabiru – Andrew and Tegan went straight to Aurora to set up camp. Incidentally, Maguk apparently would have been completely fine for us to drive to, and in fact there apparently were loads of 2WD vehicles at the carpark – so much for 4WD only! I guess it changes depending on how the wet season treats the road? Anyway it was apparently very busy, so we were probably better off at our ‘private’ waterfall anyway!

We drove to the Jabiru shops to grab a few supplies – and luckily made it with 5 minutes to spare before closing, due to a public holiday in the NT! We did a very rushed shop, which included a packet of liquorice giant twins, that we ate in the car whilst listening to Kate Bush. Richie declared this one of his happiest moments of the trip 🤣🤣. Life is hard for a coeliac liquorice lover! I have to say they were much nicer than I expected, though in this heat I imagine anything frozen would be nice!

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the pool. I started working out distances and timing for the rest of the trip from Darwin. Whenever we mention to people that we are going back via WA we get shocked responses, and we have been starting to worry that we are being completely unrealistic! I did cut out a couple of side trips inland, but more due to booked out campsites – it’s a busy time to travel! I’m also a little concerned about our planned stop in Broome, which is completely booked out everywhere!! Unless we are willing to fork out over $700/night on accommodation, haha! Hopefully an overflow campsite can accommodate us, though we can’t book. Aside from that I think we will be fine. It won’t be a long meander through WA, but I’m sure we will still see some amazing places.