Kakadu National Park

Had a great, uh, time in the Northern Territory last week.

Three days, uh, in everywhere from Arnhem Land through to Kakadu, uh, visiting some of the ranges that we, we fund around Maningrida and Ramingining as well.

Uh, basically the purpose of the trip was to get a sense of how the Northern Territory is preparing for this strain of bird flu, and certainly what I saw gave me confidence, um, that the work that's needed is being done.

Uh, and then of course in Kakadu I wanted to inspect some of the facilities that we're upgrading.

Uh, it was pleasing to see that the first of the road upgrades that we funded in Kakadu is now complete.

That's Kabarra Road.

Mm-hmm.

Specifically we'll be flying into Darwin and we'll be having a little break.

In Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park.

And we'll be taking in a bird trip while we're up there as well.

Alongside the slightly more conventional crocodile boat trip and so on and so forth.

we pulled up to Jabiru, which

is in the Kakadu National Park.

And

it was just a nice afternoon.

That was 40 years ago.

She's recently returned to Kakadu, her first trip back since the films were made.

Delveen reminisced with our reporter, Courtney Barrett-Peters.

Almost 40 years between visits, Delveen Delaney returns to the spot she helped put on the global map.

I love the fact that you can feel the sky and it just seems so vast that it makes me feel quite small as a human.

But I also think there's this element of danger up here because you know there could be a crocodile right there.

Delaney last visited Kakadu National Park during the filming of Crocodile Dundee and its sequel in 1988.

Michael J. Crocodile Dundee.

And then if you stand on them, they're fine.

At Lake Argyle, I don't think, obviously, you know where I grew up in Kakadu, there's some big saltwater crocodiles up there.

And I don't think I've ever seen freshwater crocodiles as big as I did in Lake Argyle.

Yeah, there's some big ones in there.

So Australia was one of the first signatories to that convention.

And all of the initial World Heritage Places in Australia were all natural heritage places, places like Uluru, Katajuta, the Barrier Reef, Kakadu.

I can't remember the entire list, but these places were all initially listed for their natural heritage values and ignored any cultural values.

And so a lot of these places have actually been re-inscribed at a later date on the World Heritage List website.

And from there, we traveled all the way up to Adelaide, Central Australia, did Alice Springs.

From there, we took the Great Central Road down to Perth, did the whole West Coast, did Broome, Kimberley, everything around Darwin, the Kakadu National Park.

Ended up doing Cape York and Brisbane in the end.

And yeah, it is, traveling is not free, it costs money.

So that's happening in WA.

In the Northern Territory, as we also mentioned, apart from the wonderful markets that are up there, Mindal Beach, having a look at Kakadu, great place to explore a last frontier like some of the country you've been inducted.

And that's happening now, and it goes on for the next couple of weeks, as well as that Darwin International Short Film Festival to see some of the backdrops, some of the beauty in the unspoiled country that we have in the top end of Australia.

It's not only used for Australian footage, promotions in Australian movies, but we also have international artists, international stars that come and film some of that work there.

So many of our backpackers, our working holidaymakers, all international tourists, most of them, like the vast majority of them, they don't start in Darwin.

They go to Sydney, they go to Melbourne, they go to Brisbane and they go, you know what? I really want to see Kakadu.

I really want to see Uluru.

I want to have that big trip up the guards and go, you know, up to Stuart.