T H E N   

after getting back from Kakadu on Tuesday afternoon, I turned around on Thursday night and flew back to Darwin to go back to Kakadu for work .. ! 

This time since it was for work so I got to go with Ruby and it coincided with collecting Kate Matthews and Donald Russell from Melbourne and taking them with us ...

And this time the trip was to just over the border from Kakadu into Arnhem Land to a community called Gunbalanya where they hold an annual festival called Stone Country. (check out some photos)

Ruby and I went to the Travelling Yarns Forum hosted by Injalek Arts - the art centre at Gunbalanya -

here we are wearing basket hats

later got to see the bands playing as well as some bungul and Donald in the spear throwing contest ...

what a throw eh

The most exciting part of the trip was Cahill's Crossing which is a tidal river that separates Kakadu from  Gunbalanya. The timing of your crossing depends on the low and high tides - we of course arrived bang on high tide so as we waited for the river to subside enough to safely cross we watched 6 large crocodiles only metres from the road and bank catching fish and generally looking scary and 

incredible

we also checked out Ubirr Rock again 

on the road at sunset 

now we are all back in Yirrkala once again and Kate and Donald are here for a couple of weeks visiting.   Tomorrow night we are launching the Seven Sisters at Buku-Larrnggay with the Garma attendees in attendance so that will be interesting ...  special ... daunting 

B U T   right now we are off to Goanna Lagoon for a swim and a picnic and a beer  woo   -