WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Live your version of Man vs Wild in the Australian Outback. Kakadu National Park offers unrivalled natural wonders, more crocs and birds than humans and secrets and legends of the oldest living culture on earth.

- SHIKHA SHAH

The new-age conscious traveller is increasingly pursuing "indulgence" that's removed from materialism; the one that comes with negotiating the earth's uncharted, rugged nooks and tuning into raw wilderness, its miracles and extremities. Nestled in Australia's largely untrampled Northern Territory and 150 km from the vibrant capital city of Darwin, Kakadu National Park is your chance to revel in seclusion, serenity and a spiritual connection to an ancient land. It is so remote that it almost feels otherworldly!

Rewarded a dual UNESCO World Heritage listing for its outstanding natural and cultural values, the mammoth 20,000 sq km park bowls you over with its ecological and biological diversity. Witness swimming holes hidden deep within forests, picture-perfect gorges, breathtaking sandstone escarpments, savanna woodlands with towering termite mounds, hills and ridges resulting from millions of years of erosion and varied wetlands. And you needn't spend hours scouting for wildlife here. Kakadu's manifold ecosystems are teeming with extraordinary concentrations of rare and endemic plants and animals, including 290 bird species, 68 land mammals, never-seen-before insects and heaps of reptiles, frogs and fish species. Expect surprise encounters with free-wandering dingoes, antilopine kangaroos, black wallaroos and agile wallabies. Not to forget, there are croc warning signs around every corner.

What makes Kakadu's remarkable wildscape all the more meaningful? The fact that it is home to the world's oldest continuous culture, thanks to the Bininj/ Mungguy Aboriginal people who have inhabited this territory for more than 65,000 years, dating back to before the last ice age. Although their lifestyle may have evolved, their languages, core beliefs and customs, passed down generations have remained intact.