16 May 2024
Visiting the Bowali Visitor Centre the day before, we were reminded that the Nawurlandja Lookout, with views over Nourlangie Rock, are a definite Kakadu must. This would mean back tracking around 35km to where we had been earlier that day, which isn’t much, so we decided to do it.
I carefully researched driving time and sunrise times (with no ChatGPT involvement) to arrive at a departure time from Jabiru of around 5:40am to get there and be ready for the sun rising over Nourlangie Rock. While sunset is the more popular option, we had decided to watch the sunset at Ubirr Lookout instead.
Anyway, we were pretty much on time, maybe a little behind, and Nicole and I were rehearsing what we needed to do on arrival to do the short walk up to the lookout as quickly as possible. Then, this happened …
So, what to make of this? Is it closed for controlled burning, which is prevalent up here? Is it closed for maintenance? Is it closed overnight? We were left to ponder while we waited.
We thought maybe it was a 7:00am opening to this area, so we waited until 7:10am. Nothing.
We even thought seriously about cooking breakfast and making an espresso on the side of the road while we waited, but thought it best to be ready to act when the gate (hopefully) opened.
We gave up and drove the 10km or so back to the main road and turned right on to it. About 200m down the road we saw a National Parks ute coming the other way and then watched it turn into where we’d just come from.
So, after turning around we went back in and found the ranger opening the gate. We pulled up for a chat. “Sorry about that guys, I’m running a bit late this morning. Normally I open at 7:00am.”
Anyway.
In we drove and up to the lookout we walked. It was a very nice view indeed, but we couldn’t stop thinking about how much nicer it would have been at sunrise over an hour earlier. But, we’ll never know.
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