Cables and snakes and Kakadu

Sunday 26/9/2010
Yesterday we left Darwin and drove to Kakadu National Park. The caravan park in Jabiru was our first stop, after buying park passes. We went to check out the pool while Daddy did some work on the camper. It looked like a beach because there was pebbly slope which looked like sand going down into the water. It looked like the water was washing up on the sand. All around the edge was really shallow and Molly could sit with Mum in the water! It was really big and had lots of shade sails and palm trees and rocks all around with a giant waterfall at one side. The when we went to check on Daddy he had worked out that a cable (that makes the camper go up and down) had snapped! It was a very big disaster! We drove to a service station to see if they had cable, but they didn't. We were driving around and we saw a man coming out of a tour place, so we stopped and Mum asked him if he knew where we could get some cable. He said to follow him because next door to his place was a yard where old cars were dumped. We followed him and Dad jumped out of the car and climbed through a gap in the fence. He looked in the cars to see if they had any cable to use and then he found an antenna tower (actually Mum found it, but let's not argue - ed) which was covered in cables. Most of them were rusty, but he pulled off some to see if they could work. Then the tour guide pointed us to the local dump to see if we could find some cable there. He was very nice and helpful. So we went to the dump, but couldn't find any cable. Then Mum spotted another antenna tower and Daddy collected some more. When we got back to the camper, Daddy spent hours working on it and finally (!) it went up! So we went to bed.
This morning Mum was sitting on the ground under a tree and spotted something wriggling. She called us "look a baby snake!" She pointed it out to us and took photos. Then she called reception to see if they wanted to do something about it, or just leave it. They sent up a man who said it looked like a brown snake. We gave him our shovel and he shooed it away into a bush. After a while it got a bit cranky. Another man came and looked at it and said it was a tree snake, which aren't too dangerous. It had very good camouflage in it's surroundings and it looked like a stick! I couldn't see it until Mum took a picture and showed me. We have also seen fruit bats, lots of geckos (and their babies!) frogs and lots of different bugs!
Then we left to explore Kakadu. First we went to the Aboriginal Culture Centre. We saw lots of things including nets for catching fish, spear tips, rocks used for mashing, rocks used for cutting and lots of pictures and displays. There was also a movie of a woman weaving a grass bowl. After there we went to Yellow Waters and had some lunch. I saw lots of barramundi, other big and little fish, lots of birds - some with long legs and beaks for fishing - water lilies, paper-bark trees and lots of big green plants.
We spent the afternoon in the pool, keeping cool.
I miss my friends and family.