Merl & Ubirr

Thursday, April 9

344 clicks

Mind-blowing day. My photos do the very littlest sliver of the tiniest bit of justice to today's scenery. 

Started with some more rain. That didn't stop us from heading to the Kakadu Bakery for some slices & iced coffee...Cake tastes good no matter what the precip. 

Stopped at the Visitors' Centre to pick up our park passes & off to Merl rock #1. 

This was the 4th time Chris visited this same rocky outcropping & it was like a family reunion: "Wow, she's gotten big!  Look at all her babies!  Hmmm...there used to be one here..."  It was funny to hear him & really cool to see the plants & places he's been to before. We could only construct these places from his descriptions & snapshots, but now we see it in person. 

Amazing discovery #1: Chris found a male plant that was making fruit -- something seen in the greenhouse in the past few weeks, but not recorded yet in nature. 

Days 8 & 9:  We saw a multitude of Aboriginal paintings. Ubirr was probably the most amazing at 20-50,000 years old.  It also afforded the most incredible views I think I've ever seen. It was like we were Rafiki from "The Lion King" overlooking the Pride Lands (I know it's a cartoon & a different continent, but at this point we all kind of smell like Rafiki).  This is where my photos just can't capture what my eyes took in. 

(That is Namarrgon on the right, with his wife Barrginj. He's also known as the Lightning Man. Their babies are the grasshoppers that appear before a storm). 

We could've spent more time on top of these rocks, but the rain chased us down. It's no fun trying to scale slippery rocks. 

Here are my two botanists separating seeds from Solanum fruits Chris collected yesterday (from a plant he visited last year -- they're last year's fruits & are perfect for propagating). The first bag of fruits was stolen by a crow that had been eyeballing Chris during his collecting. Just glad he took the bag of fruit & not the truck keys!