Kakadu - Helicopter Adventures and Cannon Hill

Arriving in Australia in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere winter gave us the perfect opportunity to finally get up to the Northern Territory. The weather here can be pretty intense so timing our visit for the “cool and dry” period was a focus for family comfort. Even at this time of year the heat and humidity can take a couple of days to adjust to if you’ve just come up from the cool and crisp days of midwinter Sydney.

We based ourselves in Darwin (vibrant, great food and a lot to entertain the younger travellers, we really enjoyed it) with some big trips to Garig Gunak Barlu National Park (separate blog post to follow), Kakadu and surrounding areas.

There are many excellent online resources about Kakadu (the Parks Australia site is a great starting point) so we’re not going to restate all that here, instead we’ll just keep it brief with some of the highlights, and then let the pictures do the talking!

Accomodation Highlight

The accommodation and location highlight for us was without doubt our visit to Hawk Dreaming Wilderness Lodge in the Cannon Hill area of Kakadu. As a small lodge in a large expanse of private land with so many different habitats around it there really isn’t anything to match it that we found or heard about. This is paired with some amazingly good Thai food (unexpected, but that made it even better!). The meal times here were some of our best meals on the trip, and the company was great too. What an unusual find in such a remote place!

Activity Highlight

Exploring Kakadu by helicopter was a fantastic experience, and all the better given Kakadu Air took the doors off the helicopter for us. It makes the flight a little breezy but it always is the best option for photography and it just adds to the experience. Just make sure you (and any junior traveller you may have beside you) are properly strapped in!

With Kakadu almost half the size of Switzerland, huge expanses difficult (and potentially hazardous) to access on foot, looking down from above really does give an appreciation of the enormity and majestic patchwork of habitats that make up Kakadu.

Just as our experience would have been incomplete if we didn’t spend hours driving between Kakadu locations on the ground, without that stunning perspective from above it would have been impossible to really appreciate the beauty of the remoter areas in Kakadu.

Helicopter or Plane?

Although we’ve used planes for aerial photography before (see our posts on K'Gari and Waigeo) we chose a helicopter this time. The beauty can be in the details sometimes, and helicopter flights as late in the day as possible was undoubtedly the best choice for this.

80 meters altitude, less than 50 mph and banking around tightly for another pass to get that framing right... Kakadu Air did a great job!

Rains and the movement of water are central to the seasonal cycle of Kakadu. Massive floodplain areas become wetlands through the wet season, the water levels falling back and water becoming scarce as the dry season progresses, before the cycle begins again.

The ever changing marriage of land and water here can only be fully appreciated from above. This is also the best vantage point to take in views that really look like a painting sometimes.

The ebb and flow of nature's rhythms are also written into the rivers and sand banks here with intricate patterns visible from the air.

The dark patches left from patches of 'cultural burning' (low intensity fires set early in the dry season as part of the traditional aboriginal land management practices) add some further depth to the color palette of the views.

With the crocodiles you'd never go near the water's edge or wet swampy areas on foot even if they are accessible, so from the air definitely seems the best way to explore some areas.

It's not just the crocs, there's lots of birdlife to see around the rivers and wetlands as well. The first photo in this group was taken around Cannon Hill on an evening trip with Hawk Dreaming - as a private area a stay at Hawk Dreaming is your way in to the great landscapes and views here.

The expanses of dry sand beds and braided river channels through low lying areas give a hint of the extent of water flows during the wet season. In addition to being a beautiful component of the landscapes, the sand traces pathways and carries the stories of the movement of animals through these remote areas.

Set back from the riverbank thickets of pandanus and termite mounds, rocky outcrops start to creep into the landscape, scattered across the plains, leading one's eye towards the escarpments, cliffs and weathered pinnacles that also give the area its unique character.

Erosion, the mixing of different kinds of rock, the passage of ancient seas and large rivers all contribute to the spectactular rock formations. Kakadu has some of the oldest exposed rocks in the world - 2,500 million years old.

On the eastern edge of Kakadu, the low lying plains and river valleys give way to the remote and inaccessible heights of kuwarddewardde ("stone country") and the Arnhem Land plateau. On the top of these plateaus the vegetation is sparse, reflecting the harsh and arid environment, but the narrow, deep gorges and gullies between these ancient islands support rich patches of monsoon forest.

Not only is this landscape ancient and varied from a geology and nature perspective, it also of course has a very long history of human habitation. Spread across the vast expanse of Kakadu and the neighbouring Arnhem Land are some of the largest assemblages of rock art in the world. Some paintings date back more than 20,000 years - one of the longest historical records in the world. The below selection come from both Kakadu and nearby Arnhem Land areas.

The overlay of one picture on top of another spread across large areas provides a lot of interest trying to 'untangle' the layers of artwork. The changing environment (from arid environment to estuarine and then freshwater) and historical context is also captivating - from extinct animals to highly detailed paintings of Indonesia and European ships and then to art using highly prized blue pigment from European missions, it's all there to see.

With so much to see, it's likely the light will run out before you've finished exploring!