Join Belinda and Russell for Happy Hour as they share top tips for a motorhome hire trip to Kakadu NP
What great memories you’ll create when travelling in a motorhome hire to Kakadu NP – its a popular trip from Darwin. At Gallivanting Oz we love happy hour. It’s a time where the sun sets on a busy day of exploring and it’s time to fill your belly with some good tucker (that’s Australian slang for food), and a nice cold sundowner…which is Australian slang for enjoying a nice cold beverage while watching the sunset!
Join our travel guru’s Belinda and Russell at their happy hour as they share tales on travelling to Kakadu NP and Litchfield National Park in a motorhome hire from Darwin. They’ll even show you a few 4WD camper hire options and where to explore in Kakadu.
What is so special about happy hour?
If you haven’t experienced one on the road yet, then read on! You’ll find that in campgrounds around Australia, happy hour is a special time when travellers from far and wide share their spirit of friendly good-fellowship and their stories of the gems they have found throughout the day, relax and have a laugh. At any given time at a campsite in Australia, you’ll find big smiles and friendly waves, and if you are lucky maybe even a campfire!
As travel is off the cards during this time and many of you have had to postpone trips until another time, we know that you must be missing the happy hour wind down at the end of the day so we have decided to bring our own happy hour, to you!
In this episode, your trusty travel guides Belinda and Russell are going to take you on a virtual tour across the Northern Territory and cover off some of the hot spots to explore in a motorhome hire such as Kakadu NP and Litchfield National Parks. They’ll share some great insights and golden nuggets along the way, and also provide ideas on the best motorhome hire to pick up in Darwin and head to Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks.
Heading off in your motorhome hire to Kakadu NP, just under 2.5 hours drive (it’s around 255km from Darwin to Jabiru), you’ll find yourself in this world heritage listed national park and boy does it put on a display for you!
Ubirr – Kakadu National Park
This area is recognised as a global treasure for its impressive landscape and at a size of around 20,000km2, its basically the size of a small country (it’s only a little bit smaller than the country of Wales in the UK!). With its astounding natural sights like thundering waterfalls and towering rock escarpment, endless rugged terrain, and awe-inspiring wildlife, you could spend the best part of a month in the park and experience something new every day.
It is home to iconic Australian wildlife and if you head out on a boat cruise on Yellow Water (dawn is our favourite time to go) you’ll see the most active display of wildlife as they wake up to their morning chorus and start their day. The 5m long crocodiles dotted throughout the water and magnificent display of birdlife make for exciting snaps to put in your holiday photo album.
You’ll find here too that it is rich in Indigenous culture, having had Aboriginal people living here for over 40,000 years and over 5,000 recorded Indigenous art sites in this one park alone! The two most popular rock art sites here are Nourlangie, a towering outcrop of rock that shelters paintings that represent the Aboriginal Dreaming, and Ubirr, where the art is accompanied by stunning views and sunsets across the surrounding floodplains. To gain further insight into one of the oldest living cultures you can visit the Bowali Visitor Centre and Warradjan Cultural Centre based here in this park. All of these places are accessible in a 2WD motorhome hire from Darwin and are on a sealed road.
Jim Jim Falls
If you are heading here in your motorhome hire, then you might be wanting to know where the campgrounds are. There are a few commercial campground parks around and there are a couple at Jabiru which are all suitable for you to base your stay at, with ease of access to explore the Kakadu National Park. We suggest getting a hold of the wikicamps app as this contains Australia’s largest database of campgrounds, points of interest, dump stations, visitor information centres….the list goes on, and the app only costs around the price of a coffee and cake! It works offline too so it can take you to anywhere you need to go.
Before you head off to explore Kakadu National Park, you are required to purchase a National Park permit. It’s fairly easy to purchase your park pass, either book it online before you go, or you can even pop into the information centre within the park to purchase it.
We also show you why you’d want to make sure Litchfield National Park should be part of your motorhome hire holiday from Darwin too. So different to Kakadu National Park – it is a great idea to go to both. You’ll love swimming at the bottom of waterfalls, relaxing in creeks with water bubbling over your shoulders and the variety of short and longer walks within the park. Like Kakadu National Park, there is a range of national park camping (unpowered) within the park which is first in/first served. Just outside Litchfield National Park, you’ll find a range of commercial caravan parks with varying facilities – these are great options if you’d like the comfort of pre-booking and having a powered site; and if you like air-con in your motorhome!
Litchfield National Park is nice and compact, with most travellers spending 1-2 days here in their motorhome hire. It makes a great highlight on a longer road trip, such as if you are going in your motorhome hire from Darwin to Adelaide, or perhaps Darwin to Perth. Most of Litchfield National Park is on a sealed road if you access it via Batchelor, which is perfect to visit in a 2WD motorhome hire. There is an unsealed road that runs a ‘back way’ towards Berry Springs – if that is on your list, you’ll need a 4WD camper hire, as that road can get fairly corrugated and it is not suitable for the 2WD motorhomes hires.
Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park are great places to visit after picking up your motorhome hire from Darwin. If you are looking for a short adventure, or like the idea of visiting Kakadu National Park as part of a longer adventure get in touch with us to find a motorhome and book your exciting trip!
