One of the magical things about travelling Australia is that it is ever changing.
Grey nomads can visit a place one month, and be back the next to find it is completely different. One of the most dramatic examples of this, of course, is when the rains come and the north’s Dry Season becomes the Wet Season.
In the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park, the ‘Wet’ is well and truly underway and many of the park’s roads and hiking trails are closed due to the rising waters
Locals say that the rains came a little earlier this year and the transformation of the scenery has been dramatic.
“It’s like going from Melbourne to Sydney; totally different,” Cooinda Lodge tour coordinator, Dave Darrington, told the ABC, adding that the now lush floodplains were ‘dustbowls’ just weeks ago..
As well as turning the landscape a vibrant green, the ‘Wet’ brings incredible electric light shows to the north, and transforms trickling waterfalls into raging torrents.
The Wet Season in the Top End spans from November until April and brings humidity levels in excess of 80%, and monsoonal rains and storms.
While the heat, humidity and water levels can scare away many grey nomads, and restrict travel to some areas, there are those who believe it is well worth the potential hardships to see the Top End in the ‘glorious’ Wet at least once.
Yes, lived in Cairns for 20 years, the wet seasons vary, but over 20 years the best I have seen was in the early 80’s. Incredible rainfall, cyclones and many incredible landscape transformations.
We had been told that we had to experience at least one Wet, which is why we are presently house sitting in Katherine NT. Have been back to Litchfield, Nitmiluk and Edith Falls since the rains came. Heading back to Kakadu end next week. It’s all a different world altogether.