So after the museum, we hit the road for Kakadu, or rather, we hit Kakadu via a pharmacy (for bum cream) and the chopperdoc hangar (because Darren had forgotten his cap) and the jewellers in the high street (because we'd bought a pearl pendant, you know, because they grow them up here, and I'd changed my mind about the length of chain). I was starting to think we'd never get there.
The road to Kakadu is reached via the settlement of Humpty-Doo, which has to be the best place name I've come across yet, though there's no sign announcing this at the side of the road so I couldn't get a photo of myself draped across it (or even falling off a wall). Someone in the Northern Territory is clearly having a laugh because some of the other names around here include Bing Bong, Fannie Bay and Bollocky Point, though the latter might be a joke on the part of Lonely Planet because the guidebook map says Bollocky Point but the local UBD says Bullocky Point so I'm not sure who to believe.
Anyway, we arrived into the wetlands, which aren't very wet at all because as I said, it's the end of the dry season. Still, it's an interesting time to visit because the lakes and billabongs dry up to a trickle, which means the local wildlife and birdlife gather in a very small area to get a drink and you don't have to look far to see all sorts of things going on.
We stopped off first at Fogg Dam, where we climbed up the viewing platform and spotted two or three crocodiles in the billabong near the car park, not enough to make me want to run, just to walk very quickly, though when you bear in mind I'd just had my first al-fresco wee under a tree without realising the crocs were watching, I think we can safely assume they weren't intent on biting my backside, not today anyway.
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