Having used up several days, we needed to get to Darwin so we headed off out of the park.
As we drove westwards, I pondered on what we had seen as we traversed the 300 odd kilometres (180 odd miles) of road through the park. The bush was universally eucalypt woodland with little variation in the form of vegetation. The unique characteristic of the bush in the park is the presence of beautiful red-orange tree Grevillias in flower, yellow flowering Kapok trees, mauve Turkey Bush shrubs and bright green Fan Palms. All these species were more or less ever present and added delightful touches of colour to an otherwise dull grey, and sometimes black, landscape.
The reason for the uniformity of the bush is that the road is virtually all on the flood plain north and west of the escarpment which forms the high ground of the park and which provides the spectacular, and so often photographed, Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls.
Some people call this park Kakadon't rather than Kakadu because, I suppose, they see the one kilometre of bush three hundred times over. I rather think that there is a great attraction in the beauty spots scattered however sparsely in this enormous flood plain. One must seek out the special places like Yellow Water and Ubirr but their beauty is set off well in the vast expanse of bush that forms the park.
But I digress.
The last feature of the park for us was Mamukala which is a wetland just off the main road equipped with bird hides so one can observe the wildlife in relative comfort. Being well into the dry season, they were only lots of birds here rather than the more than lots which come here at other times of the year. We saw many species. One which Jean hadn't seen before was the Comb-crested Jacana or Lotus Bird going about its business, walking on the water lilies.
Suddenly there was a splashing sound as though someone was walking in the shallow water. We went to see and it was a Martens Water Monitor (or maybe a Yellow Spotted Monitor) hunting. It had caught an eel and we saw it striving to subdue and swallow it, all this only a few metres away from us. What a highlight of our visit.
We left the park and stopped overnight at a strangely ramshackle caravan park on the banks of the Mary River. The grass was green and the power allowed us to keep cool so the money it cost us wasn't wasted.