KAKADU - Burrunggui / Nourlangie
The billabong at the campsite was just so lovely in the morning light.
Our first stop today was Burrunggui and Anbangbang or what is commonly known as Nourlangie. We are asked to respect the wishes of the remaining local people and refer to the lower part of Nourlangie as Anbangbang and the upper part as Burrunggu.
It is a huge rock shelter in the lower section that has been the wet season home for generation on generation of aboriginals. There are several sections to the shelter. In the first area, the Anbangbang Shelter they have been able to establish that the aboriginals have been coming here for the last 6,000 years. Occassional usage of the site has been dated back 20,000 years.
There were four galleries with paintings. The changing lives of the aboriginal people is reflected in the rock art and in the ground where artifacts from the various periods are found.
Theses works were in the Incline gallery.
In the Anbangband Gallery is the work painted by Nayombolmi in 1964. He is also known as Barramundi Charlie. He died soon after completing this work. This shelter was used by the aborines till the 1960s. Nayombolmi came back to the shelter to paint these figures in order to “put the people back in the shelter” as he had seen the disintegration of much of his culture.
We did the circular looop and went up to the lookout. We felt so insignificant amongst nature’s grandeur.
All of the features of the land have special significance to the aboriginals and are tied up in their creation stories and other stories of significance. I saw a quote from one of the Bininj people somewhere that said something like:
People of different clans
Have different stories for their country
You can learn some of the stories
As you walk through our country.
How true!
As we traveled west on Kakadu highway we noted that it was not as good as Arnhem highway to Jabiru. Obviously the mines need better roads than everyone else. Since the dry season has started the wet lands are decreasing rapidly.
It felt so unfair not to be able to get to Jim Jim Falls. But that is the luck of the draw.
A very special place to see was the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre. It was fabulous. The display and explanation of their way of life was just great.
We went into Cooinda but could not get to Yellow Waters as you guessed it - the road was closed and the walking track was closed. We did not do the cruise as we heard that the Corroborree Billbong cruise covers all that they do here. So we gave it a miss and continued on past a number of nicely flowing rivers.
Although we have been seeing termite mounds in many places in this area there were lots of them close together.
Hubby decided to have a look whether he could find a hollowed out piece of wood that he could make into a didjeridu.
Another place we wanted to go to was Maguk, or otherwise known as Barramundi gorge. As we drove past the turn off another closed sign greeted us. We knew it was closed but we could wish. . . We went on to Bukbukluk lookout as in this are we had gone up quite a bit in altitude. It was very scenic looking out over the flat lands to the rocky escarpment.
Finally we turned onto the Gunlom Track and made camp at Kamboolgie Creek.
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