Day: 058
Date: Friday, 28 August 2020
Start: Cooinda (Kakadu National Park)
Finish: Jabiru (plus return trip to Ubirr)
Daily Kilometres: 150 (click for Julie's Strava and photos and click here for Strava and photos from the walk)
Total Kilometres: 5976
Weather: Hot, sunny & windy
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg & lettuce sandwiches
Lunch: Egg & lettuce roll/Chicken salad roll
Dinner: Spaghetti & meatballs/Bangers & mash, ice cream
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: The 360° views from the lookout atop a rocky butte at Ubirr were breathtaking. Green floodplains, blue wetlands, jagged improbable rock formations, distant escarpments and forests as far as the eye could see. No signs of civilisation bar one nearby vehicle track, no sounds but the wind, and only Julie and I up there to savour the moment.
Lowlight: Not a biggie, but the couple of kilometres into Jabiru at the end of our long day were uphill and into the wind. Not fair.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke at 5am, but for some reason it took a little longer to pack up (in total darkness) and it was 6:15am by the time we pedalled out of Cooinda, past the tourists boarding the shuttle bus for the dawn Yellow Water cruise.
Originally, our plan for the day was to ride the 60km to Jabiru, a small tourist (and uranium mining) town with a supermarket, then continue on another 40km to Ubirr, another of Kakadu's great attractions, camp there and visit the sights. However, we would have to return the same 40km to Jabiru tomorrow and we had heard the mosquitoes were bad and drinking water quality questionable at the Ubirr campsite. It seemed a more attractive alternative might be to find somewhere to stay in Jabiru, leave our gear there and make the return trip to Ubirr with unloaded bikes. Maybe we could even find a half-day tour to Ubirr from Jabiru, or get a hire car for the day, and leave our bikes behind.
The morning ride to Jabiru was excellent, with quiet roads and the usual superb bush sunrise, but it was already quite warm and the wind was picking up by the time we reached the town. Our first stop was at the caravan park, where we were able to get a tent site and set up, even though it was only 9am, and confirmed there were no tours to Ubirr, and was nowhere to rent a car.
After setting up camp and unloading our bikes, we rode the 2km into the supermarket and bought food and drink for today and tomorrow and returned to the caravan park where there was a camp kitchen and fridge to store some of the food. After eating a late breakfast and working out what we needed for the ride to Ubirr, it was nearly noon by the time we set out, somewhat unenthusiastically, in the hot gusty weather. The Northern Territory is experiencing unseasonably hot temperatures (high 30s Centigrade) which, combined with days of strong winds, have created officially "catastrophic" fire danger, with a number of bushfires already burning and some National Parks (including Litchfield, where we hope to be early next week) closed. There are no fires near us, but conditions are extreme.
Anyway, about 10km into our hot windy ride to Ubirr, I was beginning to regret not staying near the camp pool and fridge back at Jabiru. But, gradually, the country became more interesting, with high rocky escarpments to one side and lush wetlands to the other, with some shady sections through creek valleys, and my mood improved. We reached the Ubirr carpark at 2pm, and had lunch in a relatively cool shelter, though anything that wasn't tied down was getting blown away.
After lunch, we set out on the Ubirr loop walk that passed by multiple indigenous rock art sites, some dating back about 5,000 years. They were very impressive, with great detail, and located beneath magnificent rock overhangs or in natural rock galleries. There was even a drawing of the extinct thylacine {Tasmanian tiger) which disappeared from this area 3,000 years ago. We took the detour that climbed up to the superb lookout (see above) before visiting the final few rock painting sites and returning to our locked bikes in the picnic area.
By now it was 3:30pm, so we began our return journey to Jabiru, via a short detour to the nearby Cahill Crossing, a causeway across the East Alligator River that leads into Arnhem Land and a number of indigenous settlements. It was a tranquil scene, with the opaque green river just high enough to flow gently over the causeway into the tidal river estuary below and some locals fishing from the causeway, while others hung out nearby. However, the tranquility was fragile, with a number of crocodiles visible in the river, including a very large one which had been chomping on something on the river bank not far from the fishing locals, who were keeping a close eye on him. When he did leave the bank and begin swimming directly towards them, only some 30 metres away, they unhurriedly lobbed a few rocks in his direction and he disappeared under water. A sign by the road warned there had been a recent fatal crocodile attack at this crossing.
Enticing though it was to stay and watch life at the river crossing, it was getting late, so we got going again. The scenery on the ride back to Jabiru was made even more pleasant by the rays of late afternoon sunshine, and the unloaded bikes made the rises and headwind sections more tolerable. We finally returned to camp around 6pm, and after a much-needed shower, had a late dinner. It had been a good day, but a long day.
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