Now you can see the NT’s most spectacular parks, crowd-free

Rob Woods says it’s not that he doesn’t like people, he just prefers it when they’re not around. Which is an odd thing for an operator relying on tourists to stay.

Yet, come the dry season in the Northern Territory, tourists flock to its iconic dual UNESCO World Heritage-listed national parks – Kakadu and Litchfield – crammed on coaches, crowding its world-famous natural attractions.

Woods says there’s a better way, if you trust him. I’m stepping off the obvious path through Litchfield National Park from Darwin, to swim instead in cascades where few tourists go.

Berry Springs … cascades where few tourists go.Credit: Tourism NT

“The magic up here comes,” he says. “From being the first ones here. When no one’s around, that’s when you’ll feel it. If anywhere’s crowded today I’m going to turn you around; you don’t come to the Northern Territory to be around people.”

And so it is that at 8am on a sunny Saturday morning, I’m sitting in geo-thermally heated springs where few coach operators bother visiting (Berry Springs). We’re the first ones in – once Woods assures me there are no crocs, I dog-paddle through clear water and hide behind the steady flow of a waterfall. When I’m done, Woods serves homemade mango muffins and tea on a rock platform beside the water.

The springs are geo-thermally heated.Credit: Tourism NT

The Northern Territory is home to some of Australia’s leading sustainable, eco-certified and nature-focused travel experiences. Furthermore, there are over 150 authentic Indigenous experiences, many supporting local communities. It’s just a matter of finding the right ones. Once dominated by large-scale tour operators offering nothing but big group itineraries, there has been an influx of small-scale, luxury operators offering opportunities to experience the NT while treading very lightly, with personalised service and innovative eco-tourism initiatives.

Tonight, I’ll sleep on the fringes of Litchfield National Park in a luxury eco-cabin (Hideaway Litchfield) that’s actually two repurposed 12-metre-long shipping containers stacked diagonally on top of each other. The bright idea of local family – Roger and Liv Latham (and built by sons Simeon and Jordan) – it runs on solar power, and offers a higher-end accommodation option within cooee distance of the national park. I’ll cook my own barbecue under the stars, then fall asleep with a near full moon, the only light pollution.

The anti-tourist tour … Ethical Adventures visit Litchfield attractions where the crowds aren’t, like Wangi Falls.Credit: Tourism NT

Woods’ company, Ethical Adventures, prefers to tailor the itinerary each day around where the crowds are not, rather than offer the standard list of Litchfield attractions to cross off, one-by-one.

“This isn’t Disneyland,” he says.

“I call ours the anti-tourist tour. But more operators are being vague these days, like we are, about what you’ll see. Isn’t that the fun of it?”

For such dry, escarpment country, Litchfield National Park is filled with water. You’ll find some of the country’s most spectacular waterfalls side-by-side, all accessible via paved roads. Above and below each waterfall, water flows into crystal-clear pools, between spectacular sandstone pillars, like some sort of real-life theme park.

Florence Falls … find some of the country’s most spectacular waterfalls side-by-side at Litchfield National Park.

Woods navigates his way through the circuit delicately, reversing out of car parks at the hint of a crowd.

“Hang on, big group of backpackers, let’s go,” he announces through a cloud of dust. We stop instead at a seasonal billabong set in a paperbark forest (Tabletop Swamp), a refuge for birdlife. “Walk out there,” he orders. “Sit down, watch the birds fly among the trees, breathe it in.”

We find empty swimming holes among the waterfalls, and swim in the cool, croc-free water, sliding down cascades between pools, over rocks silky-smooth from millions of years of water flow. It’s late afternoon when Woods finally gets me to the park’s most spectacular waterfall.

Tolmer Falls cascade over two high escarpments into one huge plunge pool, 102 metres below. The swift passage of water against sheer sandstone cliff creates a huge rainbow against the apricot haze of the sunset trail. It’s as delicate a scene as you’ll see in such a rugged part of the country.

Four hours west from here, Kakadu National Park is another of the Northern Territory’s world-famous national parks which can smother itself in its own popularity come the dry season. A bucket-list attraction too often ticked off on a fast-and-furious coach tour out of Darwin, new Indigenous operators are encouraging visitors to slow down and see Kakadu differently, with a smaller carbon footprint.

Yibekka Kakadu Tours operates private or small group 4WD tours that take visitors deep into his country.Credit: Tourism NT

Like 27-year-old Bininj man, James Morgan, who named his tour company: Yibekka Kakadu Tours, which translates to “listen and feel Kakadu”. Coach loads of visitors pass by on their way to must-visit sites, obvious from the size of the car park adjacent, but Morgan’s private or small group 4WD tours instead take visitors deep into his country.

“These tours are one of the only ways we can present our real cultural heritage,” he says. “Tourism is huge here, but most tour guides are non-Indigenous. I felt like it was a huge missed opportunity for the local Binnij people. I wanted to provide more job opportunities.”

We walk through the wilderness while Morgan shares stories handed down across generations of his ancestors. I’m surrounded by huge sandstone escarpments, in a 1.2-billion-year-old landscape that predates fossils.

Nourlangie rock art … there are over 5000 instances of rock art in the park.

Though it’s the dry season, a storm brews on the horizon. “My uncle says you should never look at lightning,” he says. “It’s a powerful spirit. And watch out for the mimi spirits (paintings of the spirits date back 50,000 years in Kakadu), they live in rocks and shelters. If you’re walking by yourself, they’ll come out and grab you. Even all the rangers here won’t do that, especially at nighttime, you couldn’t pay them enough to be here alone at nighttime.”

As I walk with Morgan he explains the nuances of his land: the woolly butt trees flowering red at the start of winter, the citrus stench of eucalypts on a hot day, the nutty smell of pandanus that makes me think of Christmas.

A visit to Kakadu, he says, isn’t about where you go, it’s about the passage back through time you take – among the spirits of a thousand generations of the world’s oldest living culture. There are rock art sites (over 5000 in the park) down near the big carpark where visitors gather on paved walking trails beside information plaques, but the presence of Morgan’s people reaches out far beyond the obvious.

Traditional owner Mandy Muir helps glampers connect with Murumburr Clan country at Kakadu Billabong Safari Camp.

Morgan drops me near Kakadu Billabong Safari Camp, a new 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned and operated family business in the heart of the national park. Local traditional owner Mandy Muir leads me into the Murdudjurl Patonga Homestead Community where she lives, an Indigenous settlement built on the edge of a creek with water as blue as the ocean.

We walk through the wetlands, mindful of crocs, and watch Muir’s son-in-law catch a barramundi. Back at the homestead he cooks it on the coals of an earth oven, and we eat it with her family under the shade of a red gum.

Muir operates glamping tents on an outcrop overlooking a billabong a few kilometres further up a dirt road. There’s an exclusive kind of luxury I feel out here, surrounded by nothing but woodland and wetland and mimi spirits. There are hot water showers, courtesy of today’s blaring sun, and a meal I eat outside in the twilight, watching wallabies hop down slowly to drink at the billabong, also mindful of hungry crocs.

Dining under the stars … Cooinda Lodge, Kakadu’s oldest lodge.

Even at Kakadu’s most established tourism epicentres, there’s an emerging shift towards cultural and environmental sustainability. At Kakadu’s oldest lodge, Cooinda Lodge, I arrive in time for the Kakadu Dird (full) Moon Feast served out under the stars, a monthly collaboration between local indigenous chef Ben Tyler and executive chef, Phil Foote.

Ingredients are foraged on country, prepared using traditional methods and served across four slow courses. I eat everything from popcorn crocodile to barramundi smoked in paperbark leaves, to wild buffalo, cooked in coals for 12 hours within a ground oven.

“There’s so much Indigenous food the world’s never even tried,” local Indigenous chef, Krystal Dalton, tells me as I eat.

“We serve you something you can’t get anywhere else in the world. I reckon that’s what Kakadu and the Northern Territory should be about.”

The details

Fly

Jetstar, Virgin and Qantas fly direct to Darwin from Sydney and Melbourne. All major car hire companies operate out of Darwin Airport.

Stay
Sleep in luxurious converted shipping containers beside Litchfield National Park from $254 a night, stay in safari tents within an Indigenous community in Kakadu National Park from $1470 per tent (includes meals), stay at Cooinda Lodge from $384 a night. See hideawaylitchfield.com; kakadubillabongsafaricamp.com.au; kakadutourism.com/stay/cooinda-lodge

Tour
Book a full-day small group eco-tour of Litchfield National Park from $285 a person (or book a private tour), book a group two-hour tour in Kakadu National Park from $990, book a private tour of the Murdudjurl Community from $250, book a Kakadu full moon feast for $329 a person. See ethicaladventures.com.au; yibekka.com.au; kakadubillabongsafaricamp.com.au; kakadutourism.com

The writer travelled courtesy of NT Tourism. See northernterritory.com