Kaka doodle do! And Kakadoodle done

What a busy few days we have had.  While maintaining the paper travel diary I have not been too good at the electronic version, so this is a bit of a summary.

We flew to Darwin on Sunday 11th August, seeking a rise in our core temperatures.  Sydney is gorgeous with a very mild winter, but Darwin is warmer.  The flight was uneventful and a good length, not too gruelling.  We had booked a night at the airport Rydges and that was achieved without fuss.  However the car pickup was not without fuss.  Our itinerary said we had a Europcar, but Europcar said we did not.  We had waited about forty minutes in a queue to be told this, and were not very happy about it.  "Try one of the other companies" suggested the desk clerk.  We were not happy about that either, as there were five or more, and most of them still had queues.  I tried Avis, the only one without a queue, and lo and behold our name was there.  They had a car for us!  Phew.  

The next morning we set off for the long drive to Jabiru, in Kakadu. We were booked in at the crocodile hotel, the Gagadju Holiday Inn.  They had our booking!  It is a very cavernous reception area.  They sent us around to the front right leg of the crocodile, and we hauled our bags up the leg, around to our room.  

Our first adventure was the Yellow Water boat cruise at 4.30 p.m.  We hadn't realised that this  was about an hour's drive from Jabiru so that didn't leave us much time.  Off we went, and made it in good time.  Distances are long, but not much traffic.  We saw hardly anyone on the road, but there were three boats full of people at this time.  Where did they all come from?

The cruise was wonderful, with our grizzled guide Murray telling us all about the wildlife.  Crocodiles galore.  We would have seen at least six or seven, if not more.  I was not at all tempted to swim, or even trail my hands in the water.  We saw all kinds of birds, and lovely scenery.  I was glad Michael had encouraged me to take the big camera with both lenses, including the 80-200 zoomer.  it helped to get some good bird pictures, but paled in comparison to some of the very large equipment carried by some of the others.  I suffered serious lens envy.  It was about two hours with an hour's drive each way, and we had no lunch so we were quite hungry when we got back to the Croc later that night.  We ate dinner in the restaurant.  Michael had the buffet, I had a steak.  Good food.  

Here are some of the pictures of the sunset cruise.