We needed to make some progress towards Darwin so we set off up the road to Cooinda.We called in at the campground (called Mardugal) but, as it was so hot and as they wanted to charge us anyway, we decided to go in to the caravan park at Cooinda.
We settled in, booked seats on the sunset boat tour, and took a couple of hours rest.
The cruise was wonderful. The guide/boatman was an aboriginal lady who was very knowledgeable on all things to do with the wildlife and very good at spotting all the birds and crocodiles.
We saw more than two dozen species of birds including lots of beautifully colourful Rainbow Bee-eaters, several pairs of majestic White-breasted Sea-eagles perched really close to us in paperbark trees, stately Jabiru, several species of Kingfisher, and some first for me species, Shining Flycatcher, Green Pygmy-goose, and Azure Kingfisher.
The wetlands here are quite magical with a huge (20 square kilometres or 5000 acres) paperbark swamp swarming with birdlife even in the dry season. They say that 3,000,000 Magpie Geese visit this swamp during the dry to feast on the Spiky Reed grass roots.
There are lots of crocodiles here and we saw several resting on the bank, and some in the water, one actually swimming along. They were, for the most part, Freshwater Crocodiles which are relatively harmless but no one wanted to find out.
Towards the end of the cruise, the sun was setting and the whole place took on a luminous glow which added a new dimension to the beauty of the place.
In the evening, we went to a slide show in the park which showed us views of the park in the dry season and in the wet season when it floods a lot. There were also lots of photos of birds and animals but the pictures didn't capture the magic of the real life experience of the afternoon.