Things to see & do in Kakadu National Park

Kakadu National Park is a mindbogglingly large protected landscape east of Darwin. This is the Top End: where the Outback meets the tropics; where bird-packed wetlands, crocodile rivers and waterfalls share space with chopped-off sandstone escarpments and monsoon forests. It’s also where Aboriginal traditional land owners face off against mining companies on a mission to dig deep for uranium deposits.

The biodiversity of Kakadu is astonishing. Keep an eye on the water as an Aboriginal guide paddles you down the South Alligator River. Around 10,000 saltwater crocodiles, plus flatback turtles and waterfowl, lurk in the myriad waterways. Or hike the forests in search of rare black wallaroos and chatty cockatoos.

Kakadu is the biggest national park in Australia – so how do you know where to begin? Easy: travel with a tour operator that knows Kakadu National Park inside-out. They’ll suggest extras – say scenic bush flights or a tour of the living millennia-old Mawurndaddja art galleries of neighbouring Arnhem Land. They’ll also arrange the best accommodation – like a permanent tented camp – and organise tours with experts that range from zoologists and naturalists to lifelong birders from NT.

Organised tours will also put you in contact with the vacation operator’s most knowledgeable contacts: the original land owners. You’ll learn about the storylines, creation myths and traditions that make the Northern Territory so important to Aboriginal Australians.

Barrkmalam (or Jim Jim Falls) is taller than a cathedral, running 200m down to a pool and beaches – your rewards for hiking through monsoon forest and boulder fields to get there. After the rains, it’s full-out Niagara; in the dry season it’s a trickle. Elsewhere, Twin Falls runs over a red escarpment. Or you could go for a swim in the glassy waterhole of Gunlom Falls. It’s a steep climb to the gum tree-shaded plunge pool, but well worth it for the head-turning views over Kakadu National Park. Maguk (Barramundi Gorge) has cascades, too, and plenty of swimming room. Just watch out for crocodile warnings.

Kakadu National Park is a prime of example of how Aboriginal rights and environmental rights often march together. Take the Koongarra Project Area: until 2013, this 12,000-hectare woodland was surrounded by but not included in Kakadu, stuck in a tug of war between mining companies that wanted access to the rich uranium deposits in the area and the Djok clan – the traditional owners who campaigned to include it within Kakadu National Park. The Djok clan won, protecting it from mining.

There are two other uranium mines in Kakadu National Park: Ranger and Jabiluka. After almost 40 years – and over 200 spills, leaks and breaches of license conditions, according to the Mirarr – the Ranger mine is winding down in 2021. Jabiluka has never been mined, thanks to a campaign by the Mirarr that led to a 2015 agreement that mining can only begin with written consent from the Mirarr Traditional Land Owners.

When you choose a responsible vacation to Kakadu, you’re choosing to directly support a national park. When you use tour operators that work with experienced, passionate Aboriginal guides, you learn about the importance of the land – for storylines, myth and simple survival – and show the Australian government that Kakadu is of cultural, environmental and (often most powerfully) economic worth.