An arduous combination of four flights guided me from Tel Aviv, Israel all the way to Darwin Australia. Long haul flights never get easier but when there is an epic week of adventures waiting for you at the other end, you pull through.
This week Dan Moore and I arrived in Darwin, which is in the northern part of Australia. We teamed up with Kakadu Tourism to explore Kakadu National Park for the week. We knew we were in store to experience some of the most beautiful landscapes and also to witness the longest living culture in the world.
The traditional owners of Kakadu have more than 65,000 years of culture and tradition leading them to this point in time. Kakadu National Park is one of only a few sites around the world with a double UNESCO listing for both culture and environment. The oldest living culture in the world is paired with a dense array of species, many endemic to the region in condition unseen anywhere else on the planet.
Kakadu National Park spends a considerable amount of the year in dry season and in the wet season. The roads you drive on in the dry season, might actually be three meters underwater during the wet season. It’s a pretty crazy phenomenon and means that the environment changes dramatically and so does the experience within the Kakadu National Park for visitors.
During wet months waterfalls may be flowing with almighty force and vast plains, submerged under the duress of flood waters. Fast-forward months to the dry season and the flood-plains look like the Savannah and the waterfalls have eased and created beautiful water holes for day trips. There is something to see at all times of the year out here in Kakadu.
We spend a lot of this week chasing sunsets. Northern Territory is famous for their red ball of fury sunsets. The sun is never a bright golden glare but instead, a glowing red ball slowly lowers each night, seemingly melting into the horizon. Water holes, short hikes, viewpoints, rock art, cultural performances and ground ovens were the highlights of the week.
No drones are allowed in Kakadu National Park for the most part even when we were with Kakadu Tourism for cultural reasons. I’ve become quite accustomed to capturing the scene from the air but it was good to go back to the old days and focus on capturing the spirit and landscape of Kakadu from the lens. These are my favorite images from this amazing week in Kakadu National Park:
