At 9am it was 34 degrees and already I'd had two showers. It is searingly hot but we are patiently waiting for the big tide to catch some barra. Yesterday, we met a guy who caught one so big, at 117cm, he had to throw it back! At that size they are not worth keeping, as they have become female and are no longer succulent to eat. The crossing where we fished was named Cahill's Crossing and we stood ankle deep in the salt water river from 10.30 - 1.30 pm when the heat became intolerable and we'd only caught a few barra that were too small to keep. Both Mark and David caught 42cm barra's, and
mine got away after eating half my lure. After a quick sandwich and plenty of drinks we decided to leave the
East Alligator River. We drove for about 45 mins to the Bowali Visitor's Centre run by the
Kakadu National Park and enjoyed the protection of the air-conditioned building for a few hours before venturing out into an incredible electrical storm. As we drove the 50km south to Cooinda we passed right through the storm and arrived dry at our
campground. The Cooinda camping ground is shared with the Cooinda Lodge and booking agency for anything you want to do in
Kakadu. We found a restaurant, bar and bistro and so we each ordered a cold drink from the bar for starters. David and Mark had beer, Sharon had Pimms (and complained when it didn't arrived with mint and strawberries!) and I had a craving for fresh milk so I had the Tia Maria and milk. Feeling civilised again, we went back to our
camp site to prepare our evening meals. The ground was too wet from the recent rain to consider building a
camp fire so again we cooked on the gas. We were trying Kanagaroo steaks which I had to serve with pasta because I had nothing else fresh for vegies or salad. The temperature dropped to 27 degrees briefly, but overnight sleeping became unbearably humid.
After the 6am wakeup for the Yellow Waters Cruise we agreed to get out of
Kakadu asap.