Cakelaw's Travel Tales

On our second day in Kakadu National Park, we spent the early part of the day looking at Aboriginal rock art at Ubirr, before going on another cruise, this time on the East Alligator River.  This cruise was very different to the wetlands cruise, and demonstrated how diverse the landscape is in Kakadu National Park.  Our cruise was by Guluyambi Cruises, which are run by the Aboriginal people of the Top End. We were taken down the river in a boat by our Aboriginal guide from Arnhem Land, who skilfully negotiated the many snags in the river.  Along the way, he gave us softly spoken commentary about what we were seeing and its significance to his people. This plant is used by the Aboriginal people to make fibres and medicine: Some of the river bank was lined with sandy beach: Don't you just love the contrast of these ghostly trees against the bright blue sky: The scenery along the East Alligator River was breathtaking, but in a much more understate...

During our trip to the Northern Territory in May, we visited Kakadu National Park .  There is a lot to love about Kakadu, including the many examples of Aboriginal rock art that are open to the public to view.  We visited Kakadu with an AAT Kings tour group so that we were taken to the relevant places, and had a guide to explain what we were visiting. On day 1, we visited the Nourlangie rock art gallery, which includes the Anbangbang rock art gallery. First up is a man using a woomera to spear a kangaroo: Here is a wallaby, I think: This is a closeup of the man spearing the kangaroo, with the woomera clearly visible: This looks to me like another kangaroo: I am not entirely sure what is going on here, but it looks like a hunting scene to me: One of the most distinct paintings is of this nasty individual, Nabulwinjbulwinj, a spirit who kills females to eat by hitting them with a yam: This is Namarrgon, the lightning man (t...

While we were travelling near and through Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, an inescapable part of much of the landscape was the pandanus palms, which grew in enormous groves in various places throughout the park, as demonstrated by this blurry photo taken from a moving bus: The pandanus palms fascinated me, not because of their attractiveness in situ, but because the Aboriginal women could take the leaves, strip them down and make dilly bags for carrying food and beautiful woven craft items.  Here is an example of a dilly bag on display at the Bowali Visitor Centre: This is all the more surprising because the pandanus palm leaves are very tough and spiky on three sides, so it is no mean feat to reduce them into a weavable fibre: As well as using the fibres to make dilly bags (and colourful crafts for tourists like me), the Aborigines used the pandanus palm for medicine, and they ate the pandanus fruit and seeds.  Here are some bright orange ...