Aerial - Kakadu Cooinda Flyin

 With all the things on at the moment I should be working on other things like the open day at MKT Airfield Sunday 23 August (TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!) but I wanted to share the amazing weekend at Cooinda and Kakadu I enjoyed at the end of June. I need to start out with a confession. Prior to this trip I had never been to Kakadu and by road the furtherest my feet have touched earth is Cooinda.

I am not really good at camping. When I was in the army I spent a period of time digging holes in the ground and living on ration packs and carrying my home on my back. I think the experience scarred me for life.

My idea of a camping adventure now is negotiating security and check-in at the airport in sufficient time to set up camp in the Qantas lounge for a little preflight grazing before embarking on my journey.

A group of us decided to fly out to Cooinda, stay the night and then do a scenic flight along the escarpment. Places like Yellow Waters, Jim Jim Falls, Twin Falls, Nourlangie Rock and Jabiru were names to me and not really places that I had wanted to visit by four wheel drive but the chance to fly over and around them in the safety of numbers appealed to me.

Greg had kindly offered to drive out to Cooinda with swags, fuel and other gear so we made sure the trailer was packed and the aircraft was ready to go.


View MKT to Kakadu in a larger map

Cooinda is about 170km direct from MKT Airfield and our escarpment flying was going to consume another 180km at least. The flight out to Cooinda which I have done before takes you over some of the best fishing areas in Australia. Wildman River passes beneath you followed by Corroboree and then skirting the Mt Bundey training area before heading over Yellow Waters and landing at Cooinda.

Bruce, Carol, Vince and Sam were already there and had just finished a sumptuous lunch. We were shortly joined by Steve and then Greg arrived not long after proving that a Drifter is in very little danger of exceeding the 130kmh speed limit in the Northern Territory.

Greg and I opted for a campsite which in hindsight may have been just a little close to the water's edge although it wasn't the crocodiles we needed to worry about. The mosquitoes were ferocious. Reminds me of the old story where one mosquito landed at Darwin and was filled with 10 gallons of avgas before the refuellers realised that it wasn't a plane.

Tents set up we headed out for a flight which would take us to Twin Falls.

It became very evident that we had arrived in the heart of the burn-off season or fuel reduction I think it is called. It seriously affected visibility and although our radio was OK for reception it was very ordinary for talking. We carried an epirb/plb and matches and water. There is nothing but bush between where we were staying and the scenic destinations we were heading for.

From Aerial - Kakadu Cooinda Flyin
We joined up with the highway for a bit before heading directly for the escarpment. Once we arrived there I happily flew around the wrong waterfall adjacent to Twin Falls for a bit before moving a little further north along the escarpment and being pleasantly surprised at the real Twin Falls (shown on the right).
From Aerial - Kakadu Cooinda Flyin

Looking at the sun setting and the smoke haze we opted to tackle Jim Jim falls and Nourlangie Rock the next day and headed back toward Cooinda. If you are reading this from Facebook, click on the "View Original Post" at the bottom to get the links to the photo albums.

We arrived back at Cooinda and we did a couple of lazy circuits around Yellow Waters and waved at the folks on the evening cruises through the everglades of the Northern Territory. After tying the plane down and heading back for a shower and a change of clothes we all gathered in the restaurant for dinner and good company. Everyone had enjoyed the flight out and Alan and Diane had opted to drive after some work that was required of their X-Air didn't get done on time. This is a good example for the Human Factors course. I knew Alan and Diane were really keen to fly out and time got away from them a little. Rather than rush things and fly out to Cooinda through a sense of letting the event rule the decisions related to whether it was right to fly the aircraft, Alan made the sensible choice (in my opinion) and drove out and still got to enjoy the ambiance of the location and the company.

From Aerial - Kakadu Cooinda Flyin

Greg proved a dab hand with the kerosene lamp back at the camp site  and we all retired fairly early for the true touristy flight the next day.

Breakfast was coffee, pepper and steak soup (of the powdered variety) laced with wakame (dried Japanese seaweed) and chilli - a breakfast of almost champions. Out to the airstrip, preflight and off we headed for Nourlangie Rock which is the thumbnail at the start of this article and for me really captured mysteriousness and grandeur of the place. We discovered an old airstrip basically next to the Rock that we could have got into if required, but as we didn't require to get in there - we didn't. We then headed for Jabiru and the area around the uranium mine site. Apart from the tailings dam, we didn't see much of an impact - at least not compared to the last mine I worked at in Indonesia.

The tourist aircraft were taking off from Jabiru airport which was where we were heading and although we could hear the pilots, we couldn't transmit so I decided avoidance was the better part of valour and we skirted to the West of the airport before heading back east toward the escarpment.

From Aerial - Kakadu Cooinda Flyin
The pictures will speak for themselves but there was one place we flew over that I suspect is on a path less trodden by people and it appears as a magnificent golden arch (and no I am not talking about MacDonald's) of rock. It looks as if the roof of a cave as fallen in and the mouth of the cave has also slowly crumbled, forming an arch. This arch is up on an isolated portion of the escarpment.

We then headed back along the escarpment, or rather through one of the valleys of the escarpment, passing but not entering death adder gorge before flying to, then up and over Jim Jim falls. Our backsides and throats were telling us it was time to head back for morning tea so our escarpment adventure was over without being slammed into the wall of rock or perishing in the lonely outback. That said, we were extremely respecting of the potential damage that wind and or rock could cause a Drifter who strayed too close at the wrong time of day.

Back to Cooinda, packed up the campsite, bade farewell and as folks flew and drove their way back I enjoyed a leisurely 2 hours back along the Arnhem highway, crossing the Mary River and back over the fishermen at Corroboree before the familiar scenes of Adelaide River, Windows on the Wetlands and Humpty Doo before overflying Noonamah and landing back at EmKayTee. roughly 8 hours flight time for the weekend, 260 photographs and definitely my preferred way to enjoy Kakadu... we didn't even leave footprints but we certainly took memories!!

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