Soul country: An eye-opening journey into ancient Kakadu

What we see as we descend towards Darwin is ancient land management in action: patchwork burns at the end of the wet season that regenerate the savannah and protect against uncontrollable wildfire. The fires are lit now because there is little wind and the air is not yet bone-bleaching dry. By nightfall, the dew will fall and the flames will die out.

Having flown over northern Australia with blithe indifference so many times - always on the way to somewhere else or impatient to get home - it's exciting to finally stop to explore some of it.

The immersion is quick. Less than an hour from the suburban sprawl of Palmerston, the township of Humpty Doo, its name inscribed on our collective notion of the outback, and the mango plantations which follow, we encounter giant buttressed termite mounds, stands of pandanus, clusters of petite agile wallabies on the roadside and remnants of the big wet, along with signs on every waterway warning of the dangers of crocodiles.

We're headed to Jabiru for the annual Taste of Kakadu, a celebration of Indigenous food and culture. Staged in May, as the dry season takes hold, it's not only an opportunity to escape the southern chill but is a fitting entree to a larger feast for the senses - an exploration of Kakadu National Park.

On the Arnhem Highway, we come upon one of those fires seen from the air. A thick column of smoke rises ahead. Around it swirl what at first look like embers but are birds - whistling kites.

David Attenborough comes to mind.

"They circle above the edges of the fire," I imagine him saying. "Dozens of kites scan the ground below for insects, skinks or mice driven from the flames and smoke. When a hapless morsel is sighted, they swoop. An easy meal for these canny raptors."

It's a dramatic performance - one the kites have perfected over millennia and one we were privileged to see. These opportunistic birds have even learned to spread the fire by carrying smouldering sticks to unburnt areas.

We check into the Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel in Jabiru. The hotel is famous for its saltwater croc design, inspired by the runaway box-office smash Crocodile Dundee. But it's the Indigenous art gallery inside that grabs my immediate attention. Dozens of paintings by local artists line the walls, intricate depictions of animals and Creation Time spirits. It would be easy to lose an hour or two here - and lighten the wallet.

But step out we must because the launch of the festival at the nearby Bowali Visitors Centre is about to get under way. The centre itself is a great introduction to Kakadu National Park, with an interpretive display explaining the landscape and its animals and people.

Outside, a buzz of excitement as final tweaks are made to the stage lighting and the food stalls. A tiny boy, his face daubed in white ochre, practises his dance moves to Yothu Yindi's Treaty. He delights his siblings and the tourists arriving for the launch.

Darkness falls, the atmosphere warms. Between the English, French, Italian and German can be heard the melodic language of the Bininj people, Kundjeyhmi, ancient like the landscape and still thriving. It swells during the performance of dance and song. The clapsticks, the didgeridoo, the vocals reach deep into the soul. It's impossible not to be moved profoundly.

Many eyes are on that little boy, now kicking up the sand with the other dancers. He shows no sign of the enormous weight on his tiny shoulders - the responsibility to pass down the songs and stories and knowledge he's learning as an infant. To keep the culture alive.

A hush descends during tucker time after the performance. We enjoy Thai-style kangaroo fillets and a salad spiced with native herbs, washed down with a non-alcoholic Kakadu peach bellini. The longest queue is for buffalo slow cooked for hours over hot coals in a ground oven.

It seems miraculous to have started the day racing through the angular glass and steel of the big cold city and to end it here in the tropics with a rich and fascinating cultural immersion. The sense of time yields to a much deeper sense of place - and that will be the theme over the next few days.

Next morning, on a walk through the bush with local author and entrepreneur Ben Tyler, schoolteacher Diane Lucas and illustrator Emma Long - who collaborated to produce the excellent children's book Walking in Gagudju Country: Exploring the Monsoon Forest - we're given an introduction to bush tucker.

Ben stops at one tree, grabs some leaves and mashes them together in his hands before offering us the sticky mess that results. Overcoming my reluctance, I accept a pinch of green ants. The citrusy explosion of flavour awakens the palate and I happily take some more.

We're shown how to forage for native sugar cane or djili-djili and Kakadu plum, the richest source of vitamin C found in nature. We sample sweet wild rosella which, while not native, is a favourite among children.

The morning air is alive with pretty graphic flutterer dragonflies whose appearance, we are told, signals the end of the end of the wet season. Indigenous people at the Top End recognise six seasons. May through to June is known as Yekke. It's drier and slightly cooler, coming right after April's Bangkerreng or "knock em down" season, with its dramatic storms which flatten the ubiquitous speargrass.

Our forage introduces us to country through a macro lens. But to get a sense of the scale of the place we take to the sky.

A scenic flight out of Jabiru takes us north over the now defunct Ranger uranium mine, the East Alligator River and the dramatic Arnhem Land Escarpment and the forbidding Stone Country beyond.

Our young pilot points out the largely remediated Jabiluka uranium mine site. He tells us to keep our eyes peeled for salties - estuarine crocodiles - on the banks of the waterways. We track over the emerald green wetlands, which lie on what was once the ocean floor. With its serpentine creeks and crescent shaped billabongs, and colours of emerald green, red and khaki, the landscape below looks like a vast Indigenous artwork.

Art has been woven into the fabric of Kakadu for millennia. The Marrawuddi Gallery in Jabiru has a wonderful collection of contemporary works - paintings, weavings and colourful carved animals. I come away with Karnamarr (red-tailed black cockatoo) and Snake, an acrylic on ironwood by Irene Henry and Harold Goodman, artists who live at the Kapalga Outstation in Kakadu. It now takes joyful pride of place atop a bookshelf, a tangible memento of the Kakadu dreamscape.

For ancient artworks, we head to Ubirr, an astonishing series of rocky outcrops that hold one of the world's oldest art galleries. Paintings of fish, goanna and turtles cover the rocks, a clue to their age in the depiction of a thylacine, thought to have become extinct on mainland Australia 2000 years ago.

Climbing up to the lookout, we gaze over the impossibly green floodplain, studded with rock formations. It's a popular spot to view the sunset and it's easy to understand why. The landscape is stunning. It seems Trent Dalton's whimsical novel All Our Shimmering Skies - set in the Top End - is laid out before us. No wonder countless generations called Ubirr home and adorned it with their art.

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But we have plans to catch the sunset elsewhere, promised we won't have seen anything like it. And we haven't.

Nawurlandja Lookout sits opposite Nourlangie, a remnant of the Arnhem Land escarpment and location of another acclaimed rock art site. As the sun sinks, and we clamber to the top of the lookout, Nourlangie lights up in brilliant oranges and reds, framed by tendrils of smoke from a patchwork burn below it. Beyond it, also illuminated, the vast Arnhem Land escarpment, which once dropped into a shallow sea.

We're awed. Lost for words and happy to be silent in the moment. Content to be on country.

Another surprise awaits us at Cooinda Lodge, the tourist centre at the heart of the national park. After a long day's adventure, we check into the resort's newest accommodation options, the Yellow Water Villas. Built on stilts and clad in canvas, they take glamping to a whole new level. There's a giant king-sized bed, kitchenette, a deck overlooking the woodland with an outside bath and barbecue, a library of books about the Top End and even a yoga mat. It's supremely comfortable and safari stylish - the very opposite of roughing it. And from Mimi's Restaurant that night, an array of sophisticated Top End specialties - barramundi, kangaroo, buffalo and crocodile - all suffused with native ingredients.

We head back to Nourlangie the following morning to join a tour led by park guide Johnny Reid. His commentary as we make our way along the path is thoroughly captivating.

"Hear that?" he asks as a cockatoo screeches off in the distance. "If someone is lost in the bush we can follow that sound to find them."

"See that?" he says, suddenly stopping. "It's a tree snake." We all crane our necks to catch a glimpse of the reptile high in a tree.

Tapping a small tree which sounds hollow, he says, "This one will be good for a didgeridoo - the termites have already hollowed it out."

Johnny tells us the story of Namarrkon, the Lightning Man, who resides on the Arnhem Land Escarpment, and shows us an ancient rock painting depicting him. He is surrounded by a band of lightning and wears axes on his knees and elbows, which he uses to make thunder. It is forbidden, we're told, to trespass on Namarrkon's home.

A short distance away on the banks of the lily-cloaked Anbangbang billabong, the Hunter family has been at work preparing lunch since 5.30am. Beef, sweet potato and pumpkin has been cooking slowly in a wrapping of paperbark laid over hot coals in the ground. When we arrive, four large barramundi, caught that morning, are placed on a fire above ground.

After a presentation explaining the various uses of plants for food and weaving, we feast on the slow-cooked meal. There's a lot to digest - the food, the stories, the bush tucker knowledge and the raw beauty of the surroundings.

And there's still more to come.

As the sun begins to sink, we head back to Cooinda to board a Yellow Water sunset canape cruise. It's a birdwatcher's delight. We see comb-crested jacanas, known colloquially as Jesus birds for their ability to seemingly walk on water, thanks to the biggest feet-to-body ratio of any bird. We see vast rafts of whistling ducks growing restless as the light fades. Our skipper explains they will fly all night until it's safe to land again after dawn.

And then, posing perfectly in the golden light of dusk, a crocodile steals the show, his scales lit up like Nourlangie by the setting sun. On our way back to Cooinda, the whole watery scene begins to turn purple as day shifts into tropical night.

In three days, Kakadu has been tasted. It's not only whetted an appetite for more but has changed the way I look at the country around me. I see things which before I hadn't noticed. The fruiting pittosporums, the scratchings and scats of wombats in the forest, the shedding paperbarks, the seeding grasses.

The experience has opened my eyes to country.

The writer was a guest of Tourism NT

Getting there: All major domestic airlines fly to Darwin from Australia's other capital cities. Kakadu National Park is a three-hour drive from Darwin on well maintained, fully sealed roads. Various hire car options are available at Darwin Airport, offering vehicles running from small sedans to four-wheel-drives. All attractions mentioned in this story can be reached on sealed roads. People wanting to venture further into the park should consider hiring a four-wheel drive.

A word of caution: Northern Territory roads can be subjected to flooding during the wet season. It's best to check before setting out from Darwin. See northernterritory.com for road safety tips.

Staying there: Bookings for the Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel and Yellow Water Villas at Cooinda can be made through kakadutourism.com. Rates at the Mercure vary, depending on the room type, and discounts are offered when booking ahead.

Cooinda Lodge has a range of options, from small glamping lodges, roughly $500 per night, through to the new upmarket Yellow Water Villas, at almost $1200 a night.

Bush tucker must-do: For the ultimate taste of Indigenous ingredients, Cooinda Lodge offers a Full Moon Feast. Chef Phil Foote From Mimi's Restaurant prepares a range of dishes designed to seasonally reflect the six Kakadu seasons, with ingredients foraged by Ben Tyler.

Activities: Kakadu Air offers a half-hour scenic flight out of Jabiru, as described in this story, for $150. An hour-long flight which takes in the spectacular Jim Jim Falls costs $250. For further details and bookings, see kakadutourism.com.

Explore more: For details about activities, the Taste of Kakadu festival, walking tours and other guided activities, visit parksaustralia.gov.au/kakadu/