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Jane Corry, travel.com.au
Travel Reporter, has returned from her 8 day tour of the Northern Territory.
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| This is Tuesday so this must be paradise . . .a waterhole in heaven rimmed by rearing, ochre and slate grey sandstone walls, edged with a dappling of paperbarks, a hot Kakadu sky above. Stroke luxuriously through the purest water on earth towards the waterfall on the far side. Today, at some two metres high, it is a shadow of itself because it is September - the furnace time of Gurrung in the Aboriginal calendar. Yet a white plume still powers out between the cleft in the rocks - rain water that could have taken up to seven years to filter through. | ||
 View of the East Alligator River from Arnhem Land side |
It's
the sort of detail Sharon, our AAT Kings tour director, is full of. Europeans
named this Edith Falls but the indigenous Leliyn - sweet water - is far more
lyrical. And, blow me down, it does taste sweet in a Hermesetas sort of way.
It's been a perfect day that began with a cruise on Yellow Water Billabong
(please, no lewd jokes). Those of an artistic nature should approach this place with caution: drifts of tiny snowflake lilies, towering cyclamen pink lotus lilies and their cradle-big leaves, dancing jabirus, a twisted horn cow grazing blissfully in eye-high buffalo grass. Cut your ear off now, Vincent. We saunter past on shot silk water that reflects the white of egrets rising and even of a magnificent sea eagle surveying us from a paperbark, a freshly caught eel catfish between its talons. Our boat guide, Steve ('Not Irwin, ha,ha'), explains that so much wildlife is drawn here because it is one of the few permanent stretches of water left in Gurrung time. 'Croc at 9 o'clock!' he raps. My stomach jumps as I am suddenly eyeballing a saltwater crocodile eyeballing me. |
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| Just a metre away, it is standing on its tail, huge jaws clear of the water. There's a furious clicking of cameras as we weave past. Once my heart rate goes down I get this pathetic urge to be the one who snaps out: 'Croc at 2.43!' But when I actually do spot a salty (at 1.10) all I can do is gulp. It's like a submerged log and we respectfully curve past it. | ||
 Rock painting at Ubirr of European buffalo hunter |
The tour is called Top End Spectacular but, as you quickly find out, this doesn't mean a Disney dancing crocs approach to the Northern Territory. It's a thoughtful, eight day journey into the Aboriginal culture and the tropical ecosystem that make this place so high on people's must-see list. It's nothing like a school tour but by golly that Sharon pumps out some detail - detail that sticks because it's so amazing. Like the 20,000 year old rock drawing of a Tasmanian Tiger at Ubirr in Kakadu, drawn big because it was important local food, and the 150 year-old one of a white buffalo hunter, drawn small because the Aborigines didn't think these white guys were of any real importance. We visit wildlife parks and wetlands, magnetic termite mounds like gothic grey tombstones in Litchfield National Park, and beautifully presented Aboriginal cultural centres. We cruise two of Katherine River's 13 gorges, as overwhelming as medieval cathedrals. We're invited to step on to the spiritual Arnhem Land escarpment by our Aboriginal guides sailing us down the pea green East Alligator River. |
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| Some of our group of 23 take an optional half-hour, $85 flight over Kakadu's Stone Country and return near speechless at its fantastic sandstone shapes sacred places. Modern civilisation isn't ignored, of course. Who can forget standing in that tiny black room in Darwin's Museum - six at the max - listening to the recording made as the terrifying Cyclone Tracy hit in 1974. The young woman opposite me instinctively raises her hands to her mouth in prayer and my eyes begin to sting. | ||
 The three sisters at Manyallaluk. From left, Maxine, 8, Jessie, 7 and Justina, 5 |
But for sheer joy - and major admiration - you can't beat the day we spend at the park-like Manyallaluk, outside Katherine. We're guests of the tight-knit, traditional Aboriginal family that lives there and, after a barbecue lunch under the spreading mango tree, we sit round head guide, Manny. 'Ask us anything you like,' he urges. 'We want to share our lives with you.' Polite silence. Perhaps we should ask what goanna tastes like. 'Ask me how many wives I'm allowed, for instance,' Manny suggests. Stunned looks. 'How many?' I ask. 'Three,' the personable Manny smiles. |
 This is how you make fire. |
| 'The elders have decided who my second wife will be but she's still at school.' Manny could be aged anything from 30 to 50. Wife number one is fine with the arrangement, it seems. After all, it's following a tradition that has preserved their society for a lot longer than ours. We're taken on a gentle ramble through surrounding bush and learn what important trees look like, such as the tickly woollybark used to keep snakes away. Back on the lawn, we make paintbrushes from reeds growing in the waterhole, grind ochre on rocks and try painting like Manyallaluk's artists. We fumblingly try to strip pandanus grass so it's ready for basketweaving - only Bev can - and none of us can twirl the stick long enough to create fire but Maggie beats the boys at spear throwing. All of us find it hard to say 'boh boh' (pronounced baw baw) - bye bye. | ||
 Florence Falls, Litchfield NP |
VERDICT:
The tour costs $1999pp twin share but you get your money's worth with very
good hotels, brilliant buffet breakfasts and dinners, a comfortable coach
(you need it - you cover 1850kms) and an intelligent, eye-opening itinerary.
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 Bathing at Wangi Falls, LNP |
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