TRAVERSE Issue 21 - December 2020 | Page 79

TRAVERSE 79
rock art photos in this article .
Kakadu is described by Parks Australia as a living cultural landscape . “ It has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 65,000 years . Ours is the oldest living culture on earth ”.
It was exciting to travel out to Ubirr . This area is a rocky hill , with many rock shelters and spectacular sunset views over floodplains . Ubirr is an experience of discovery , in finding more and more shelters filled with rock art . These paintings document the long history of Aboriginal people in this area of rich biodiversity . These are spiritual stories of life , hunting , dreaming and cultural law over thousands of years . This is the sacred Australia .
The sidecar ride to Cahills Crossing , was to watch the East Alligator River at the change of the tide . When the tide starts coming back in after low tide , many fish swim upstream over the causeway .
But , there are many saltwater crocodiles waiting for an extensive fish feed . This is a feeding frenzy with 50 or so of these large powerful animals waiting at the causeway . Vehicles crossing the causeway into Arnhem Land sometimes honk their horn to get crocs to move off the causeway .
While we stayed at Cooinda Lodge , some 60km south of Jabiru , we headed out in the dark one morning . This was to board the Yellow Waters Cruise to view this wetland at dawn . There were thousands of water birds and many crocodiles . The birds included Brolgas with a red band of colour on their heads and Jabirus with iridescent green heads and necks . The Brolgas were about 1 metre tall and Jabirus 1.5 metres tall . The Brolgas could be seen doing an intricate courtship dance , with synchronised graceful jumps into the air .
Another ride was out to the Nourlangie area with the Anbangbang rock art shelters . This was another memorable Kakadu experience finding more rock shelters with amazing rock art . We also walked to the higher Burrunggui sandstone escarpment area . It was peaceful sitting up there on a balmy morning , listening to the wind , feeling the breeze and looking at the distant view of the magical Arnhem Land Plateau . Arnhem Land , so spectacular , was calling me to go further into that difficult to access country .
The day we rode to Maguk Falls was an adventure . This was a ride of about 65km each way with some of the worst washboard corrugations ever . There was also bull dust , the fine , deep red sand of the outback that can be such a hazard for solo bikes . The Ural required full power to get through the bulldust . Alternating from correcting the slide with full lock to the left , followed by
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