Exploring Kakadu, Australia’s largest national park, is a traveller’s playground of nature on the grandest and most stunning scale, and living culture that goes back further than any other. Here’s our Essential Guide to Kakadu — one of the most wonderful places on earth.
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More than twice the size of Yellowstone National Park in the USA, Kakadu is truly enormous. It’s home to around a third of Australia’s bird species and over 10,000 saltwater crocodiles (yup, the bitey ones).
It’s also where the longest living culture still exists after 65,000 years and the incredible rock art and history that goes with it still going strong.
Kakadu is a place of abundance and intrigue, of extremes and superlatives, and it’s one of the most fascinating places you could ever hope to visit.
Here are our top tips for where to stay, where to go and what to do in this unique landscape.
Essential Guide to Kakadu National Park
Clicking on each chapter will jump straight to that section.
— Culture hubs – Kakadu visitor centres
— Getting back to nature – seeing Kakadu’s wildlife
How to Get to Kakadu
Kakadu is right at the Top End, a few hours’ drive east from Darwin. The best way to get to Darwin — of course — is to fly.
From Sydney, it’s a 4-hour 20-minute flight, and all the other east-coast Aussie state capitals are about the same .Adelaide and Perth are around 3h35m, and Hobart is a sickly seven-odd hours with a stop along the way.
Other options are to sail in. Darwin Harbour is lovely and has regular cruises and other ships pull in. We docked at Darwin years ago after a National Geographic voyage around the Kimberley Coast.
The other option is driving to Darwin. Driving the Top End is an awesome experience and highly recommended if you have the time.
Either way, once in Darwin, you will need a car to get to Kakadu. You can find great prices on car rentals from Darwin Airport here. We recommend a 4WD capable car.
If you don’t want to drive yourself, there are lots of tours going from Darwin to Kakadu that are excellent too. This one goes from Darwin City right into the park, to infamous Cahill’s Crossing to see huge estuarine crocodiles, then to Ubirr for the most astounding rock art and back to Darwin in a day!
Where to Stay in Kakadu
There aren’t many places to stay in Kakadu. In fact, unless you want to camp, you’re limited to just a couple of hotels.
The Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel in the little town of Jabiru is wonderfully kitsch and comfortable. Built in the shape of a massive crocodile, the Croc has been renovated from its previous motel status.
You can find our full review of this interesting hotel here.
The other option is Cooinda Lodge, which has a range of accommodation, from a campsite and hardstandings for motorhomes to motel-style rooms to full-blown luxury safari lodge style cabins.
We stayed in the cabins — the Yellow Water Villas — and it was wonderful. Here’s our review.
Where to Eat in Kakadu
Apart from snacks at some of the visitor centres and a pretty expensive supermarket in Jabiru, you’re limited to the restaurants at the hotels.
Fortunately, these restaurants are excellent.
Manjmukmuk Restaurant in the Croc Hotel has an affordable buffet option and also a lovely a la carte full-service section that offers some really quite impressive dishes. Our review is here.
Mimi’s at Cooinda is excellent and the chef — Phillip Foote — creates special menus that showcase local bush ingredients that are seasonally available.
Also at Cooinda Lodge is the Barra Bar, serving pub style classics, and a fish and chip van that is actually superb.
Check out our write-up of all the food options in Cooinda here.
Things to Do in Kakadu
Ancient Galleries — Kakadu’s Rock Art Sites
There are plenty of sites around Kakadu where you can find some of the best examples of Indigenous rock art in Australia.
Ubirr
One of the largest collections of ancient rock painting is at Ubirr, where there are paths leading throughout this significant gallery. There’s even evidence here of thylacines — Tasmanian Tigers — through the art.
High up on what would once have been the rocky floor of the site is a painting of the now-extinct carnivorous marsupial. There are also depictions of megafauna — gigantic kangaroos and wombats the size of cars.
This all illustrates not only that humans were around when these ancestors of dinosaurs walked the earth, but also just how old these artworks are.
There’s plenty of parking right at the Ubirr site, and watching the sunset here is also very popular.
Nourlangie
At the base of a magnificent limestone outcrop of the escarpment, Nourlangie Rock, thousands of paintings tell the millennia of history of the Bininj and Mungguy culture.
You can also see where artists and elders of the current generation have come to update and maintain the gallery that has been here for so many thousands of years.
We were lucky to have brilliant young local guide James Morgan show us around Nourlangie and tell us some of the stories around the art.
Between late May and late September, you can book a local guide to take you round different cultural places like Ubirr and Nourlangie for free! Keep an eye on the Kakadu Tourism site for details.
Culture Hubs – Kakadu’s Visitor Centres
Kakadu has some truly excellent visitor centres that not only offer information on places to go and things to do, but also insights into the park’s culture and history.
Bowali Visitor Centre
This centre is the best visitor centre for speaking to a guide about where to go in the park and what to see.
There’s also an excellent display on the plants, animals and landscapes you’ll experience in Kakadu.
Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Through the doors of this impressive centre, you’ll find a winding path that takes you around a clever exhibit on the cultural history and network of the local peoples of the region.
You’ll find examples of tools, messaging systems and artworks of the area, as well as real-life stories from people growing up in Kakadu and a simplified explanation of the complex kinship rules governing marriage and families here.
Marrawuddi Art Gallery
This gallery has an impressive collection of artworks of a range of media by Kakadu artists and from the wider region you can buy. It also sells a range of bags, clothing and souvenirs.
Just as important, Marrawuddi Art Gallery makes the best takeaway coffee in the park. We highly recommend enjoying your well-made flat white as you wander around the racks of art in the lovely air conditioning!
Getting Back to Nature — Kakadu’s Wild Side
Kakadu Bird Week with Luke Paterson from NT Bird Specialists
One of the highlights of Kakadu’s tourist calendar is Kakadu Bird Week, which runs at the end of September. It champions not only the enormous depth and wealth of birdlife in Kakadu, which is home to over a third of all Australia’s bird species, it’s also timed with one of nature’s great spectacles.
This time of year, when the dry season is at its end, the waterways are at their lowest. This concentrates the waterbirds’ habitat. It also coincides with the flocking of thousands upon thousands of magpie geese.
You can see this for yourself quite easily by making your way to any of the large billabongs of the park.
But if you want to do it properly (and actually understand what you’re looking at), booking a tour with NT Bird Specialists is a must. Luke ‘Hawkeye’ Paterson is one of Australia’s if not the world’s great ornithologists. And his moniker is not unfounded.
The couple of morning hours we spend with Luke, we spotted 64 different bird species and learnt about a lot more. You can read our full review of our time birding with Luke in Kakadu here.
Cahill’s Crossing — the most dangerous road in the world
On the eastern edge of Kakadu, where the park ends and Arnhem Land begins, runs the East Alligator River. It’s a poor name for the waterway as there are no alligators in it at all. No, instead you’ll find hundreds of enormous saltwater crocodiles.
The road to Arnhem Land fords this river, and in the dry season, the water’s low enough to drive across. I wouldn’t recommend it — you also need the appropriate permits to cross the river — but the viewing platform on the western bank gives you the perfect (and safely elevated) perspective on the hunting crocs.
Ngurrungurrudjba — Yellow Water Sunset Cruise
Easily the most beautiful and nature-filled activity in Kakadu, the Yellow Water Cruise is special. From Cooinda Lodge (you can book your cruise here), a bus transfers you to the little jetty where everyone boards small, flat-bottom launches that allow access to shallow waters.
You cruise along this magnificent stretch of water, spotting everything from jacana birds and water buffalo to brolgas and massive saltwater crocs. There are so many of these modern dinosaurs in Yellow Water, you almost become complacent with them.
Why is it called Yellow Water you may ask. The name (no, it’s not because of that) becomes apparent as the sun sets and lights the surface of this billabong a dazzling gold colour that turns to bronze and red as the sun gets lower.
Check out our review and video of this spectacular experience here.
Maguk Waterfall
One of the few waterfalls that runs all year round in Kakadu, Maguk and its sparkling plunge pool are tucked away into the stony cliffs of the escarpment.
To get to the waterfall, you’re looking at unsealed roads and a bush walk that’s challenging at times as it follows the rocky riverside of Barramundi Gorge.
The hot hike is worth it though. You emerge from the steaming rainforest to the idyllic sight of the falls and its pool that have carved themselves into the sandstone over the millennia. It’s safe to swim here in the dry season, and the cool water is the perfect salve to the sweltering heat.
Check out our write-up and video on Maguk here.
Angabang Billabong
On the drive to Nourlangie and its amazing rock art galleries, Angabang Billabong is a small wetlands that’s worth a quick stop to see.
The shallow water spreads glittering across the plain and attracts a host of birdlife. At its back, the sculpted near horizon of Nawurlandja looms, creating an atmospheric vista.
Nawurlandja at sunset
The steady incline of Nawurlandja takes you to a vast viewpoint that has Angabang Billabong at its feet, the stern bluff of Nourlangie behind and the ranging escarpment filling in the background.
Nawurlandja — like Nourlangie — has some excellent rock art, but as the sun hits the western limits, it’s this vista you come for. Turning the sky a boiling red and the rocks around gold and crimson, sunset at Nawurlandja is startlingly beautiful.
Also, as this part of the park closes at nightfall, you’ll find a Bininj park ranger monitoring visitors. They’re happy to answer questions about the area and often have excellent tips for your time here.
Mirray Lookout
About halfway between Cooinda and Jabiru, Mirray Lookout is a reasonably tough 1,000m uphill scramble up loose rocks and red dirt to a lofty timber viewing platform.
The platform’s roof and the breeze at this elevation is lovely, and once you’ve cooled down, you can take in the views.
From here, the sea of trees seems to go on forever, hiding wetlands, rivers and its abundance of wildlife from view.
The trees are punctuated by ridges of the Arnhem Land escarpment — Stone Country to the Bininj and Mungguy. It’s here that evidence exists of humans’ longest continuing culture in the world.
What’s the Best Time of Year to Visit Kakadu
We’ve had the fortune to visit Kakadu a number of times — in the Wet Season in March and April, at the end of the Dry in September and on the brink of summer in December, the surreal super-humid moment when the Dry has finished but the storms of the Wet haven’t yet come.
Dry Season — May-October
It’s easy to see why the Dry Season is popular for tourists. The humidity is low, the flies aren’t too bad and a lot of the waterways are navigable. In fact the low water levels often mean that wildlife is more concentrated.
However, it is the busy season for the park.
Wet Season — November-April
Also known as the Green Season or the Tropical Summer, the Wet is exactly as it sounds. The rains are heavy and regular, and the temperatures and humidity are high. Some of the attractions will be unreachable or dangerous with water inundation and the crocodiles expanding their territories.
However, the abundance of life in the park is amazing at this time of year. Everything is green and lush, and the swollen rivers and billabongs add that extra bit of drama to everything. Scenic flights at this time of year reveal the true wealth of nature of Kakadu.
It’s also much quieter in the Wet Season, which means you pretty much have the run of the place.
A Quick Summary
Getting there
Direct flights from all Aussie capitals (apart from Hobart) to Darwin, then hire a car from Darwin to drive about 3.5 hours to Kakadu.
Where to stay
The Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel in Jabiru is a quirky motel-style hotel in the shape of a crocodile.
Cooinda Lodge has everything from a camping ground to motel style cabins to high-end luxury glamping retreats that are amazing.
Where to eat
Manjmukmuk Restaurant in the Croc Hotel is good. Mimi’s at Cooinda is excellent. Also at Cooinda Lodge is the Barra Bar, serving pub style classics, and a fish and chip van that is actually superb.
Marrawuddi Art Gallery has the best coffee in the area.
Things to do
Must-dos are Ubirr and Nourlangie for the best rock art, Cahill’s Crossing for crocodiles and the Yellow Water cruise at sunset for the scenery.
If Maguk is open, then it’s worth the hike.
Experience the profound birdlife in Kakadu. You can do this on your own, but booking a tour with people like NT Bird Specialists puts it in a whole other league.
What’s the best time of year to visit?
The Dry Season (May-October) is the most popular because the park is so much easier to get around, but it is a lot busier. The Wet (November-April) is the most dramatic, though humidity is tough.
The thing to remember with Kakadu is it’s beautiful and utterly unforgettable all year round.
