Top End National Parks

So in our final week we rented a 4wd to explore the famous national parks around Darwin.

Awesome beast, isn't it?

Litchfield 

After only 150 km we reached the Lichfield National Park. Our first stop were the Magic Termite Mounds. The buildings of the termites can get higher than 5 meters and are all over the place.

After that we needed a refreshing swim at the Florence Falls and it's surrounding swimming holes. Such a great place to take a dive in crystal clear water and under beautiful waterfalls.

This was one of the best places in the national parks and perfect for a hot day in the dry season. 

In the afternoon we moved on to see the lost city which is only accesable by nice 4wd track.

When I see that, I can understand why aboriginal people believe that places like this are sacred. You really get a spiritual feeling when you wander around those strange rock formations.

To finish the day we saw another nice waterfall at sunset:

We slept almost eleven hours because we had not much to do in the evenings, camping at lonely places. 

In the morning we took a cool bath at the Wangi Falls 

What a great start in the day. 

Later in the day we walked a nice bush track to the Cascades. The best part was was walking down the creek to a plunge pool with a small waterfall.

That was our last stop in Lichfield and we spend the afternoon driving the way up to Kakadu.

When we had lunch a funny bird joined us that looked so suprised for about half a hour :D

Kakadu National Park

We arrived at our first destination Ubirr in the Kakadu National Park, which is ten times bigger than Lichfield, at sunset. Ubirr is a sacred place for the Aborigines with a lot of beautiful ROC paintings that are often more than 5,000 years old! 

Often there are many layers of paintings, that's why one can't really tell the actual story that was painted, but it's fascinating to hear some storys told by Aborigines or to think about what the painter could have meant.

First we thought there were a lot lof bushfires in the national park that could be dangerous but the someone told us that they are caused purposely to prevent bigger wildfires.

Our third day we started with a short natural walk that reminded me of the Lost City:

Unfortunately we couldn't see the biggest waterfalls, the JimJim Falls because the road was still closed due to flooding so we saw some more rock art that day and camped on another lonely campsite. 

In Kakadu there are heaps of crocodiles and not only freshwater but also huge saltwater crocodiles. That's the main reason why swimming is almost not possible there but on our last day we finally found a great saltwater crocodile free spot which was probably the best of all: Maguk.

Paradise on earth!

Would you swim with freshwater crocodiles under you? We did :D

Then it was already time to drive back to Darwin. We took a 100 km gravel road including two water crossings. 

Just when we were back on a sealed road in the morning we had a shock moment. I was driving as usual when suddenly a small kangaroo jumped in front of the car - no chance to stop, but we were lucky as the kangaroo survived and there was almost no damage at the car. Puuuh.

All in all I have to say Lichfield was way better than Kakadu and two days are more than enough to see Kakadu but we had some great days especially in Lichfield and at Maruk. 

And we found a funny sign:

Somebody seems not to be alright with "no firearms" haha :D

Back in Darwin we were at Crocosaurus today. Sven and I dared to go in the cage of death to see a 5 m crocodile face to face

We hoped for some more action but it was impressive anyway. This one weights over 600 kg! If they attack you in nature you are gone in a second.

So now that's it. Tonight I'm flying to Singapore and leave Australia behind me. I can't believe that my 8 months here are already over but I had a great time with ups and downs and many many people I met.

It's time to move on and I'm also looking forward to see South East Asia.

Fin.