Today we left Cooinda and headed only 50kms up the road to Jabiru. In Kakadu at the moment there is the Taste of Kakadu Festival on so when we booked 6mths ago, we couldn’t get 3 nights in a row anywhere hence the two nights at Cooinda and one night at Jabiru.
We started out the day with a hearty buffet breakfast, not knowing at that point that we would be ending the day with a buffet dinner! After our delicious breakfast we packed up and left Cooinda. Just a short distance up the road was Noarlunggie which offers a 1.5km walk with rock art and a lookout. The weather was soooo humid and hot that we were all dripping with sweat by the end of the walk. It was a really pretty area though and the rock art was very interesting.
On the way back out we stopped by Anbangbang Billabong, a seemingly innocent billabong absolutely covered in white water lillies. We can only imagine what is lurking beneath. Actually, no imagination required, the numerous crocodile warning signs gives you a fair indication of what’s under the water and why you shouldn’t be going anywhere near the water!!
Only 2kms out of Jabiru is the Bowali Visitor Centre which whilst informative, wasn’t quite as impressive as the one just out of Cooinda. The cafe and gallery there are both closed down / shut so we didn’t stay too long before heading into Jabiru itself. As we were too early to checkin, we headed across to the Foodland and got ourselves sandwiches and wraps for lunch at which point we were called to say our room was ready so we headed back and unpacked our gear.
After eating lunch we decided to head out to Ubirr, about 30mins away, another major rock art site. An easy 1km track took you to several impressive rock art sites and another 250m steep climb up some rocks took you to an amazing lookout over all the surrounding floodplains. It was really pretty to see Kakadu from a different perspective.
Once again we were all hot and bothered after our walk – and a bit itchy having forgotten to re-spray ourselves with mozzie spray – so we headed back to the hotel for a swim. The pool was rather refreshing and we all enjoyed the cool down. At 6:15pm we headed down for dinner to the restaurant in the hotel where we were only able to have the buffet for dinner, I think the 3 AATKings tour buses staying at the hotel might have something to do with that! The buffet was alright though not an overly extensive selection. I think the boys enjoyed the multiple helpings of dessert the most!
