Adelaide to Kakadu February 28

Up early this morning for a travel day, as we need to get to the airport for our three-hour+ flight north northwest to Darwin in the Northern Territory.  Another time change—although Darwin is in the same time zone as Adelaide, it does not keep daylight savings time, so we set our clocks back an hour.  We’re still ½ hour off of the rest of the world.

As the plane landed and the doors opened, there was a blast of extremely hot, extremely humid air.  It was almost hard to breathe!  We got our bags and got onto our bus for the ride east to Kakadu Park, which took about three hours.  We had a box lunch on the bus.

In this part of Australia the Europeans identify two seasons—hot wet and rainy, and hot but bone dry. We are at the height of the rainy season.  On the bus we had a wonderful introduction to the Aboriginal peoples who make up about 30% of the scant population here.  We also were given a very well-done 34 page handout on Kakadu National Park and on the Aboriginal peoples who have lived here for at least 20,000 years and perhaps a many as 50,000 years. When we arrived at our hotel in the park the temperature was 97 degrees and the humidity 100%.  One of us has a converter which said that the effective temperature was 108.  It was HOT.

The land here is extremely flat, an alluvial plain with a rock escarpment about 20 miles inland from the ocean.  In the wet season, the monsoon rains flood the plain, and the whole area becomes a wetland:

It all dries up in the dry season!  The Aboriginal people have six seasons which they identify, and have no calendar.  The dates of the seasons vary year to year depending on how early or late the natural changes occur.  Seasons don’t start or stop on a given date, but rather are said to begin and end when the things which occur during that season actually happen.  This is just one of the very practical and pragmatic things we learned which are practiced by the native people.  There’s lots to read and learn and it will be very interesting. 

There was a huge tropical absolutely monumental rain which lasted for about an hour while we had dinner, and then it stopped and the temperature had cooled.  It must be a frigid 80, with still 100% humidity, as we prepare to go to bed.  Our air conditioning works!