Day 14 Darwin to Kakadu

Day 14 Darwin to Kakadu

Yay! We are awesome! What I really mean is that we somehow managed to stow our stuff back into the car and camper trailer in quick time this morning. Not even an argument or raised voice. We were held up for a while by the Canadian couple across the road who came over with a pile of info for us and also wanted to offer us their Kakadu National Park passes, which we declined. We bought our own for $25 each. You have to show them if stopped by a park ranger and it does have you name on it and is not transferable.

We intended to stop for second breakfast at the Humpty Doo Hotel, but somehow we completely missed the turnoff. Never mind .... we can stop at Window to the Wetlands. We'd visited here on a previous visit and knew they had very good displays, great views over the wetlands and best of all .... it's free! Dammit .... the coffee shop was closed. In fact it's no longer operational which is a real shame.

Barb outside Window to the Wetlands

The view over the wetlands plains

Dry now....but in The Wet it would resemble an inland sea

We remembered to bring the binoculars

John looking at the displays of wetland birdlife

We eventually found a place to pull in for coffee at Corroboree Park Tavern. The lady behind the counter assured us that their pies were high quality homemade ones. Unfortunately they'd run out of the variety John wanted (and my second and third choices too) so he settled for a steak and chill one. It was HOT!! Complete with real chilli seeds to pick out of your teeth later. The quest for the perfect pie continues.....

That's a disappointing pie face

It's a fair old way to Cooinda. The Arnhem Highway intersects the Kakadu Highway at Jabiru and then we backtrack another 60 km to Cooinda Gagudju Lodge. There is a dirt road short cut between the two  highways but we didn't know what state it was in and didn't want to risk it while towing the trailer.

A great place to stay

All set up at Kakadu

It's a lush campsite

We arrived at Cooinda at 2pm and settled into our very lovely grassed campsite. There are big shady trees, great amenities blocks including laundry close by and we have the use of two gorgeous resort pools. After we set up our camp Barb headed straight to the pool for a dip. There are so many foreign tourists here. It felt as though we were the only English speakers. Many of these people also seem to have their young children with them and are driving Apollo or Britz hired campers. The luxury!

It's going to be tough putting up with this

Jess is joining us later this evening for the weekend. The poor girl was going to try and get away from work early, but best laid plans have a way of going amiss in the busy life of an O & G doctor. She rang us after 5pm to say she'd been held up in the operating theatre. Quelle surprise! Hopefully she will drive carefully and be here by about 8.30 pm.