Sunset at Ubirr

After lunch and a cool off in the pool we headed to Ubirr to watch the sunset and listen to another ranger talk. The ranger talks over the dry season are wonderful, its all free and sometimes it includes activities too. The rangers are knowledgable and passionate about what they do and they're enthusiasm was infectious.
Ubirr is a large rocky outcrop high up overlooking the flood plains and Arnhem Land. The talk was on the floodplains and how they change over the seasons. Its different up here, they dont have the 4 seasons like we do at home but rather about 8 stages eg 'the build up', 'the wet', 'the dry' etc
Ubirr, like Noulangie Lookout, was just beautiful, so peaceful..

Controlled burning is an important thing up here and every dry season a section of the area is burnt. They use photographic mapping to keep track of where they've burnt in previous years and rotate the burning. The aboriginals have been doing it for thousands of years and its continues to help regenerate the land. Some seeds etc are only opened after a fire. The birds love it as insects flee into the air and provide them with a feast. Some Kites are fire bugs and pick up pieces of ember and drop them somewhere else to start another fire! The nature of the bush means they never get out of control but rather are slow burning grass fires which put themselves out. These fires were burning on our way to Ubirr.

 The holes in this rock are where aboriginals have used it as a grinding tool (like a mortar and pestle) They didnt carry big or many tools around with them but rather had places where they would come to at different times of the season and they would leave their tools etc for their return. Holes this deep would have taken many many years to form..

I love that photo of Wil listening intently to the ranger.. As the water levels drop after the wet season a great influx of Magpie Geese (cheers Wil!) come in to eat the exposed chestnuts and prior to that many animals and aboriginals enjoy eating the lillies..

 As you come out of Ubirr on the left there is a place call the Border Store. Quite funny to see it sitting there in the middle of Kakadu! Over the dry season a couple -she is Thai, he is Australian, run the store serving the most fantastic Thai food amongst other bits n bats! So, what else do you do in the middle of the Aussie bush after a sunset but eat Thai!!! yum!

Fires were still burning on the way home. At one point as we drove around the corner of a winding road suddenly there was a stork standing in the middle of the road right in my headlights! It looked at us for a few seconds then turned and flew off down the road! At night with the smoke all around it was quite eery!