Rock painting, boats and barra.

Thursday 30/9/2010
On Monday we went to have a look at the rock paintings at Ubirr. We saw paintings of barramundi, people, Rainbow Serpent - who swallowed a boy who wouldn't stop crying -wallabies, kangaroos, emus, turtles, a person with swollen joints - he'd disturbed a sacred place - a lightening man, pictures of European people - they had their hands in their pockets and some had pipes - hunting, a picture which the traditional owners of the land believed were drawn by the Mimi Spirits. That one was up really high on top of an overhang of rock. Then we climbed up to the top of a really high cliff. I could see for a very long way. There was wetlands and more rocky areas. It was really hot! We sat underneath two rocks leaning together and decided it would have made a good shelter. We also saw places were the painters had ground up rocks to make paint and had made a dip like a bowl in the rocks.
When we left, all the kids fell asleep in the car and when we woke up, we were back at Yellow Waters. Mum was taking us on a boat trip!! We saw crocodiles and we saw white bellied sea eagles, azure kingfishers, Jabirus, a Jabiru nest, which was about 100 times bigger than any other nest I've seen in my life! There were lots of ducks and other birds. It was fun and exciting! Mum spent the whole time telling us to sit down on our bottoms and if we fell in, she was not going to jump in and save us and we would be eaten by crocodiles! Daddy was trying to catch a barramundi while we were on the boat, but he didn't get any.
When we got back Mum got us barramundi for dinner again! It was a great day!

Tuesday we drove to Mataranka and while Daddy rebuilt the winch system on the camper - after picking up supplies from Katherine - we went to the restaurant and had steak for dinner! There were two long-necked turtles in a tank called Tiny and Biggy. That night there was HUGE storm! It was really noisy and there was lots of thunder and lightening and there was so much wind the whole camper shook! I didn't like it a single bit! Daddy came and lay down with me until the storm stopped.
Mum woke me up Wednesday morning and said "Do you want to see a peahen?" I jumped out of bed and Mum gave me a piggy back outside. There were three peahens walking around. One of them had flown out of a tree and given her a big fright and got a big fright herself! There were lots of big and little branches down from the storm and Erin, Claire and I started to pick them up and make a huge pile. We went up to watch the barra feeding and I got to feed one with a rod and so did Erin! The man could pick them right out of the water! They were really big! We saw a peacock showing off to the peahens. He shook his beautiful tail feathers at them. He was very pretty, but they ignored him. There was a baby wallaby that the owners had rescued and we patted her and I fed her some carrot! She was really cute. Molly really liked her too and kept trying to grab her!
Today we drove to Alice Springs and tomorrow we are just driving again.