Kakadu

No trip to the top end of Australia would be complete without visiting the Aboriginal lands of Kakadu National Park.

Located 250km to the east of Darwin, Kakadu was where the very first Aboriginal people settled - tens of thousands of years ago. It is therefore home to some of the oldest culture, art, traditions, plants and animals on the entire planet. It is a World Heritage Area bigger than Wales, boasting stunning scenery and a fascinating history.

I decided to book myself on a 'grown up' tour for this experience. I wanted to go on a trip that would do justice to the place I was visiting, not a budget backpacker tour where the guide is more interested in asking how pissed everybody got the night before.

It took us a good few hours to get into the park after a 6.30am departure from Darwin. Our first port of call was Ubirr, where there is amazing Aboriginal art work dating back God only knows how long.

I can't really summarise in a post an accurate synopsis of Aboriginal culture. But what I did get a great sense for on this trip was the amazing attachment they have traditionally had to the land they live in, and all the nature and wildlife of that area. For example, an ancient Aboriginal would not necessarily see any difference between his neighbour and, say, a Kangaroo. His best friend might be a tree. He would have regarded everything to have been alive, and as such would feel the same towards it all.

Aborigines were perhaps the first human race to have a system of law and order. However, nothing was ever written down. Rules and traditions were passed on through art work or stories told to children. Respect for the law was regarded as absolutely essential - even if you did not know the rules existed.

We were told the tale of a young woman from a neighbouring tribe who started living in the mainly male settlement of Ubirr thousands of years ago. One day the men all went out hunting and, keen to impress, the girl decided to cook them up some food for when they returned. She went down to the river, caught a couple of Barramundi, and then dutifully cooked them up. It is not clear whether she cracked open a bottle of Blue Nun and put on a Phil Collins CD.

While cooking the Barramundi, the girl got a bit peckish and ate some of the fish herself. When the men returned and saw all of this, they were incandescent with rage. Why? Aborigines have traditionally been given totems at birth to confirm their connection to the land they live in. In other words, their parents nominate an animal to which they are spirtually attached. In Ubirr just before this girl arrived, a very popular and admired old man died and his totem was the Barramundi. As a result, the local tribe introduced a law that nobody could eat Barramundi for generations.

When all of this was pointed out to the girl, she understandably protested her ignorance of the rule. This was no defence under Aboriginal law. If you break a rule, you have to face the consequences. So the men beat the living shit out of her. For several days. Eventually the dispute resulted in battles between other tribes and several deaths. The moral of the story? Always make sure you understand and respect the laws governing somebody else's land. It became a story told through generations for thousands of years - illustrated by art work at Ubirr.

See, you learn something new every day! I am not aware of any modern day Aborigines beating up birds for doing the dinner. It is funny - actually, let me rephrase that - it is ironic that Aussie tour guides can describe with such warmth the tales of their country's indigenous past, but yet their fellow countrymen and women seem so incapable of living beside Aboriginal people today. You may have heard that the Australian Prime Minister has recently banned alcohol in Aboriginal settlements in a so-called crackdown on child sex abuse. I will return to this subject later in the week when I visit some of the communities that the army and police have been sent into.

Anyway, anyway. Enough politics for now. After lunch we went on a boat trip, which took in some beautiful natural habitat. There were lots of crocodiles (obviously) and also a considerable amount of rare bird life. Interesting as it is to see the crocs, when a tour guide rides a boat to within inches of one that is four metres long, you don't have to be an expert on these creatures to realise that he wouldn't be doing this if it was going to attack anyone. I wouldn't recommend swimming next to the buggers though.

On the long drive back to Darwin we stopped off at a pub. It was one of those infamous ramshackle outback bars that prided itself on being the only place you could get a beer for about 200km. Around the bar was an equally stereotypical huddle of Aussie 'blokes', all drinking heavily and putting the world to rights. They completely ignored all the tourists - not that I felt like having a conversation with them. I couldn't work out if the rest of the pub was deliberately shit for effect or just genuinely run down. The pool table was falling over and the juke box was out of order. You could still flick through the Cd's - the most recent one that would have been available for play was the Smash Hits Best of Compilation 1991. I'm not joking.

I would have liked a second day in Kakadu, but I had a lot of things to arrange for the remainder of my trip before I leave for Alice Springs on Saturday. I'll be sad to leave Darwin too. It has been hot every day and I've enjoyed myself - despite all the entertainment being centred around a couple of streets at the far end of one of the most desolate countries on earth.