Day 150 - Saturday 27 May - Cruising Corroboree Billabong

Day 150

Saturday

27 May 2017

Darwin - Corroboree Billabong

Ok, I am officially over alarms! Today we had to be up early as we were heading out to Corroboree Billabong in the Mary River National Park for a tour with Wetland Cruises.

We left at 8am following the Stuart and then Arnhem Highways through the town of Humpty Doo, dodging the hundreds of birds of prey that were out on the roads, along with the odd wallaby and snake. It was like the video game Frogger.

We made good time, making it to the boat ramp just after 9.15am. We found the spot our boat would be launching from and proceeded to hang out at the undercover jetty. We watched the water alive with archer fish and eel tail cat fish. Paul couldn’t resist for long and went back to the car to collect his rod and flick a line.  

 I happily wandered the edge of the platform looking for larger things moving around us, though nothing stirred. This area of Australia has the largest concentration of crocs of anywhere in the world, so we were bound to see one eventually. We were told on the tour that this particular billabong has 7 crocs per 1 square kilometre while Shady Camp has 20 for the same space.

Paul finished up catching two cat fish, before packing his gear away and we began our tour of the Wetlands with Tony, our guide, at 10am. There were plenty of other people out on the water, mostly fishermen in tinnies, but also houseboats and BBQ boats.

Our aim today was to check out the wildlife. There are many species of bird that call this billabong home and it didn’t take long for them to show themselves. We were all spotters, pointing the fellow traveller in the direction of what we were seeing. Plenty of Nankeen Night Heron juveniles made an appearance first, followed by the adults. White belly sea eagles flew above, along with whistling kites.

Nankeen Night Heron juvenile

and the adult version

Egret

A sea-eagle nest high in the trees was spotted and you could just make out the shape of a white head peeking out over the edge. Meanwhile down on the large lotus leaves, a male Jakana was watching over his clutch of eggs. We were able to get in really close for decent photos.

Forest Kingfisher

We moved through the water system as far as we could before it became clogged with an invasive weed and we were forced to turn back. Tony pulled into the bank at one point to raid a green ant nest encouraging everyone to lick the bum of an ant, we passed, but others said it had a citrus flavouring and apparently there are breweries making beer with them!

 We also got up close to the Lotus plant. We were shown how there are factories in Burma creating thread from the sap of the plant. The huge leaves are also repellent, so no dust or water seeps in making them ideal for water carriers and as rain hats.

You can just make out the threads between this broken stem

We returned, spotting a forest kingfisher with bright blue wings and white belly, before making a right and heading out along a different arm. We stopped at a small cut out where water lilies carpeted the billabong with white and mauve flowers. In the background we could just make out the nest of a jabiru, high in a distant tree. This was a postcard moment.

The Jabiru is in the tallest branch of the middle tree.

We continued along this waterway, now spotting for crocs and we found them, mostly sunning on the banks. There was a large salty that we turned around for and moved in closer. We scared it and it leapt into the water and submerged itself, leaving a trail of bubbles as it cruised otherwise undetected, that was an unnerving moment.  

This was the big croc we scared

Our tour was for an hour and a half, but Tony was so excited to get out amongst it that we were still bobbing about well after 11.30am. We did eventually make our way back towards the jetty, stopping to take in the large gathering of bird life, egrets, heron and ibis.

We were then graced with a flyby of a pair of jabiru. They landed near a bank and we were able to manoeuvre the boat in close enough to get some decent photos. The pair was there collecting grasses for their nest, but didn’t hang around long. I tried to get photos of them taking off, but the camera was a bit slow with focusing, which I cursed!

We finally made it back to the jetty for 12.10pm, we should have been back at 11.30am, so we certainly got our money’s worth, at $55 a head it was a great morning out. Our only issue with getting back so late, was that we had a lunch booking for 12.15pm at the Purple Mango and Brewery in Marrakai, about 20min away. So it was a very quick drive to get there fashionably late.

We pulled into the car park at 12.30pm, pretty good time travel I thought. Paul made it straight into the brewery, while I headed for the café, to let them know we were here and apologise for being late. I was shown to the table and proceeded to wait for Paul, but he was obviously taking his time, so I had to take the pizza menu to him instead and come back and order our antipasto pizza and a chilli prawn.  In the meantime I ordered a mango smoothie. It came out like a thick yogurt and it was delicious.

Paul eventually joined me, bummed that he had had to pay for his tasting and our pizzas arrived shortly after. They were also yummy.

We finished up at 1.40pm, returned to the car and made the journey back to the van, both tired and in need of a rest and a cool down in the pool and that is exactly what we did. I loaded the photos, Paul wrote his review and then we were off to the pool to cool down. It was nice to stop for a bit.

We returned to the van, Paul reading and I continued with the photos before he went off for a shower. I made up dinner, a light one after a heavy lunch and limited walking.  Then we made our way into the Darwin Waterfront where the Harmony Soiree was taking place.

We found a place to park in the multi-storey and then wandered out amongst the crowds. There were tents set up for the various nationalities that chose to be represented and lots of colourful costumes and food. We wandered around the various stalls checking things out and then stopped to watch some of the performances of various cultural dance, music and singing.

After seeing enough, we walked into the city and on to the local woollies to pick up some needed groceries, including more RID, as we are going through the stuff faster than you can blink and yet we are still be eaten alive.

With our two bags filled, we returned to the car and then stopped in at The Precinct for a drink. It also allowed us to watch the Dockers being hammered and a close Richmond game.

After our drink, we returned to the car and then returned home, too late for an evening swim, so instead we crawled in to bed, read for a bit and then called it a night.