Kakadu

Episode 9

On to Darwin.

The plane was, once again, a 70-seater, and it was a very smooth and enjoyable flight.  We put down on a small island in the Gulf of Carpentaria , a place called Groote Island, where there is a mining settlement.  I could have left the plane for a while, but I couldn’t see any point, as the stop was like a bus-stop pickup.  Most of the scenery on this flight path was very drab and repetitive until we flew over what must have been the Kakadu region.  There were huge, craggy, outcrops of land dotted with split mountains and chasms  cut deep into the earth.  Darwin Airport was pretty upswept for the Far North, but I guess it was rebuilt after the cyclone a few years earlier.  I took the shuttle into the city and went to the YWCA, where I was going to stay –at the huge cost of $30 a night.

The “Y” was, as usual, a good central place to stay, only minutes into town by taxi and it was also on the main bus route.  Joy of joys, I could wash my clothes. By now, I was desperate, as I was travelling with so little tropical gear. However, my burdens had been added to by the huge box that Andrew’s offsider had packed my artefacts in.

  And so I started on my half-day tours.  These were great value for money.  I was going to go to Melville Island, but when I found out just what was involved in getting there – a flight on a very small plane, four wheel drive vehicle, a trip in a very small boat, and then doing it all again to get back to Darwin, I chickened out.  I felt pretty exhausted from my earlier exploits at Gove. I looked at the Kakadu option, but once again, it seemed physically too hard for me. The trip was by four wheel drive vehicle  and it was stipulated that you must be reasonably fit, which I must admit, I wasn’t at that stage.  I decided to leave this hard adventure stuff  alone until I could do another trip, where I would fly straight to Darwin, via Alice Springs  with a stop at Cooperpedy (the opal mining town in Central Australia,