Off we set to Edith Falls, the first water fall visit of this holiday, God it's hot and guess who is there to accompany us, the F#*~ing Flies, we climb to the top pool but decide that it although it may be fresh water it looks yuk, so down to the bottom pool, where we see the notice from the local government advising us that they'd do their best to keep out salt water crocodiles and that you should not swim in the bottom pool after 7pm, because estuarine crocodiles only feed at night....... It's so hot! So let's take the chance that my sweaty feet will deter whatever.......... Splash! This fresh running river water is warmer than my swimming pool at home ever gets, how am I going to cool down? No idea but I suddenly notice, no flies, they are all off looking for some other sweaty body to irritate..........
Next stop Pine Creek for coffee before Kakadu, on the approach to pine creek we see loads of signs advertising refreshments etc, we turn in and find three really dumpy places, two of which looked closed, so we continue to the plush looking 'Pine Creek Railway Resort' it takes ages to find a legal parking spot as its on the town cross roads, but we eventually enter and find a notice, 'Back in 5 mins' no customers, the restaurant in darkness and chairs on top of tables........ Now those of you that know me, know of my low tolerance and patience level with incompetence, so you alone can now imagine the scene in side this so called 'resort'...........
An hour later we pull into the Mary River Roadhouse, where we are served by a young good looking guy from Suffolk, working his way around Australia but has to return in March, but does not want to. Get talking to him about Kakadu and what to do and his boss comes out and spends at least 20mins talking and advising us of the best places etc some of these roadhouses are so desolate but the staff, amazing!
Off we drive through termite country and notice the mounds are getting taller and taller, so much so that we later find out that some birds actually hollow out a nest in them...... We eventually pull into Cooinda and immediately book the sunset crocodile cruise, after the roadhouse recommendation. Wow what a result, two hours of going up and down 'Alligator River' (it was named by some explorer that did not know the difference between croc's and alligators)
Breathtaking, amazing and fascinating, we even see a buffalo impersonating me losing the flies by dunking himself in the river....... the guide was an aborigine who had so much personality, knowledge and river water skill, we are thinking of doing the early morning cruise at 6.45am with him...... Okay one of us is......... One of us takes over 400 photographs whilst the other uses up her camera battery, both on a high when we get back so only thing to do is hit the bar, in a proper resort, that we are staying in tonight.
No flies on me........
