After I put a post on Facebook about yellow water – some people (cheeky souls) asked if yellow water was anything like yellow snow!!! Luckily the answer is no.
I decided to stay at Cooinda next – which is where Yellow Water Billabong is located. In Kakadu, although the whole place is national park there are a few places where there are “commercial” areas – like this one that has a motel, campground, restaurant, etc. Otherwise, there are “managed” campgrounds run by the National Parks people and (I suppose) unmanaged campsites. The managed ones have showers (hot water via solar panels) and flushing toilets – the unmanaged ones have some sort of toilet and that’s all. It was a managed campground I stayed at at Gunlom and there are a few others dotted around the park. There was one nearby Cooinda – but I thought I’d stay at Cooinda to be close to do the guided walk & the boat tour I wanted to do. I was a little bit shocked at the price to stay at the campground ($35 for an unpowered site for a night – compared to $10 per person at the managed campgrounds) but I guess that’s what you get in the middle of no where. Luckily they did have a VERY nice pool – so I got a lot of use out of that.
Yellow Water Billabong is just lovely. This country is amazing for how quickly it changes and its little pockets of different landscape. Even at Gunlom, I drove along the side of the river – but all the country leading up to the falls was just dry and wooded – and it gets flat fairly quickly once it comes down off the escarpment. But then there’s the escarpment, the waterfall and the big pool at the bottom of it. Amazing.
So, Yellow Water Billabong comes up out of nowhere. Even on the road to the turn off to the Billabong its wooded, dry. Even in the car park. But then you walk toward the boardwalk & the boat ramp and voila!!! Water, green grasses, water lillies, green, water, green. Its really a huge contrast – and just lovely.
Anyway – that’s a later story really – I didn’t drive up to the board walk the 1st day – just to the carpark – so I didn’t know then how good it would be. I drove to the campground, got a campsite and booked the sunset tour on the billabong for the next day. Went for a swim in the pool to cool down – as it was quite warm!!! Cooked dinner, went to bed.
Next morning I got up & walked the 1.5 kms to the Yellow Water Billabong boardwalk where there was to be a ranger guided walk. However, due to the huge wet season they had earlier in the year, the walk was more just a stroll up the 200m of boardwalk that was above the water line. Apparently at this time of year there’s usually a 2km walk – but its under water at the present time. Didn’t matter – the ranger was quite good – knew her stuff and was good at telling it. We walked very slowly along the boardwalk & she pointed out different plants & animals and gave us the information. This was one of the first times I’d learned of the 6 seasons. Although most people would just say there are 2 seasons up here (Wet & Dry) – the Aboriginals break the year down into 6 seasons.
“Gudjewg, Monsoon season – December to March” – the true “wet” season,
“Banggerreng | Knock ’em down storm season- April – the big rains have stopped – but storms with big winds knock down the tall spear grass” – hence the “knock ’em down” name.
“Yegge | Cooler but still humid season – May to June – relatively cool – a time to start burning off. Misty over the floodplains.”
“Wurrgeng | Cold weather season – June to August – is the ‘cold weather’ time; humidity is low, daytime temperatures are around 30°C and night-time temperatures are around 17° “- note this is their COLD WEATHER!!!!!!
“Gurrung | Hot dry weather – August to October – hot & dry “- what more can be said!!!
“Gunumeleng | Pre-monsoon storm season – October to December – It is the pre-monsoon season of hot weather that becomes more and more humid.” This is also called the “build up” and I’ve been told can send people mad – as the heat builds up and builds up & nothing changes – and people are just waiting for the rain the cool things down & make things a bit more bearable. I’m a bit worried as this will be what I’ll be dealing with for the next few months – across the top of this great country – will be interesting to experience.
And the interesting thing is that they don’t go by calendar dates – as the seasons don’t start the same time each year – depends on how the rains and winds and stuff come I guess. For interest – this year the magpie geese are running late – there are normally a heap of them around already & so far not many have turned up – apparently because its till too wet – the water is too deep & they can’t get to the water chesnuts – which I understand grow under the water – so they have to duck (yes – they are geese!!) down in the water to get to them – and if the water is too deep – they can’t get to them. I have seen quite a few – about 20 – 30 but usually at this time of year all the water holes have thousands on them. So – the Indigenous calander would be put back a bit I guess.
Water & green at the billabong
So – it was beautiful just looking from the boardwalk that morning – and I was looking forward to the afternoon’s boat tour. I walked back to the campground and hit the pool again – tried to catch up on some blogging – had a swim – blogging, swim – etc. Met some lovely people from Armidale here – a couple & their 16 yo daughter – had a few chats to them.
In the arvo there was a bus back to the boat ramp and the tour on the billabong was really lovely. I saw lots of different birds – including – quite excitingly – a Jabiru – which is a fairly rare bird and is very standoffish – so it was great to see them – the male bird was close-ish – but the female bird was very far away from the boat – which they usually do apparently.
The thing we did see a lot of (about 8 – 10 of them) were crocodiles. Big ones (well – not really big – but a fair sized) and smaller ones (that weren’t actually that small either!!!) It was funny when at one stage, when we were looking at some type of falcon in a tree – a cute, young looking one – the boat drivers said “smell that – that’s crocodile – that fishy smell” and you could smell something too – a bit yucky actually. Then a women on the other side of the boat from me yells out – & there he was – this one was fairly big too.
Crocodile & birdie!!!
So – whilst a lot of the water holes etc around didn’t show up the crocs so much – it just goes to show – you wouldn’t be swimming anywhere that they don’t suggest. But, there are a few places up here where you can swim – such as at Gunlom – especially around a couple of the waterfalls as the Parks mob set traps & scan for crocs before the dry season begins to ensure there are no crocs around. I think they would close any of those swimming holes fairly quickly if they thought there was one around. But you have to be very very selective as to where you do swim. Hence my happiness at the swimming pool at the campground.
We were out on the water to watch the sunset – which was just lovely – as most sunsets in this type of setting would be. Lovely to watch & photograph – although these photos weren’t as nice as some of my sunset photos so I wont post one here.
Back on the bus to back to the campground. I was going to have a meal out – but their menu wasn’t all that appealing to me and was rather expensive – so I went back and cooked some dinner – went to bed.
So – spent Sunday 11 & Monday 12 Sept in Cooinda.
margiecrimmins 