mission beach & cardwell - queensland, australia

after the atherton tablelands was the mission beach our next destination. especially because we hoped to see a CASSOWARY in a free nature and yes, WE DID 😃.

joy at mission beach ~ QLD, australia

my dears, swimming in mission beach was allowed and there were no crocodile warning signs. but only 6 - 10 km to the south at the south mission beach were crocodile warning signs ?!?. how the hell do the crocodiles know they can not swim to the mission beach and eat tourists and/or local people? just to make sure, there is no island / reef or any other natural or artificial barrier in between 😱.

enjoy few beach & sun 💥 pictures:

source of the picture unknown, probably some postcard

mission beach + dunk island 

 best of all wives at mission beach

evening at mission beach

sunset at clump point:

cassowary walks together with us in free nature in djiru NP (licuala day use area @ wongaling beach)

 

walking to the bicton hill (Clump Mountain National Park):

 

view to dunk island + hinchinbrook island from the top of the bicton hill

Kakadu NP + Nitmiluk NP ~ NT, Australia

After Darwin and the Litchfield NP was Kakadu NP our next stop in the Northern Territory, Australia. Kakadu NP was declared both, UNESCO cultural and UNESCO natural heritage. Its natural scenery that i remember from the Crocodile Dundee movie was probably the main reason to visit Australia. As often when you expect too much, we have been somehow disappointed 😕. Mainly because we have seen the beautiful Litchfield NP before and because at the first day on our road from Darwin to the main visitor center Bowali close to Jabiru there was not much to see. The scenery did not changed a lot over hundreds of kilometers. Even our three stops (wetlands walk, tourist center, East alligator river) were not very interesting ...

Later on we have seen beautiful nature in the Kakadu NP and learnt a lot about its people, plants, animals, climate and experienced much more: nature walks, billabongs (water holes), dry jungle forests, rock formations, aboriginal rock arts (20.000 years old paintings), boat tour, climbing up rocks and waterfalls, swimming in waterfalls and creeks [of course free of saltwater crocodiles (estuarine) in the dry season], enjoyed driving our 4WD car on unpaved roads, chilled on the rocks waiting for sunset, .... just the food was not to good and the prices were too high for the service provided ... 

After 3 nights in Jabiru we have moved south to Katherine and spent the next day in the Nitmiluk NP and the Nitmiluk Gorge (built by the Katherine River) walking and canoeing. As the Nitmiluk NP borders on Kakadu NP and the nature does not know man made borders, i will not make a separate blog post for Nitmiluk/Katherine :-).

Enjoy few pictures:

aboriginal arts in museum

billabong (water hole)

gorilla guru 😃

two of us

 

best of all wives 💖

rock arts (at Ubirr? Or was this the 2nd rock arts site we have seen?) 

this 25-30 cm big insect was in the bathroom all night, then i took in out in the freedom

Australia is a dangerous country, isn't it? 😃

boat trip at Yellow Water

salt water crocodiles (estuarine) inhabit also the big rivers deep inside the country

  

border cafe 'Manbiyarra' at Cahills Crossing between the Kakadu NP and the Aboriginal reigned Arnhem land. A special permit is needed to cross this border.