Ancient and special. Once across the infamous Cahill's Crossing, and travelling the floodplain below the rugged crags of the Arnhem Land escarpment, time changes. Space changes. And as a visitor to this special place, the feeling of privilege of being allowed to even just set foot here is immense.
Wiligi Outstation sits on the coast of Mount Norris Bay on the Coburg Peninsular in West Arnhem Land - about 200km (or a 3-4 hour drive) north of Jabiru as the crow flies. The drive is an experience in itself - with the shortish run from Cahill's Crossing to the Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) turnoff, turning the Hilux into a virtual hovercraft as we made our way along the corrugations of an elevated road bed that snaked its way through wetlands teeming with birdlife - and maybe the odd croc. All the while the cliffs and crags of the Arnhem Land escarpment rise above, holding secrets these casual visitors could only imagine.
“It's rugged, it's isolated and it is beautiful.”
Traditional owner Reuben Cooper welcomes visitors onto his Country at Wiligi, and he's set up plenty of room around the beach area for campsites, and even has a few glamping style permanent tents available . We'd already blown our dough on the suspension upgrade for the Hilux - so opted for the basics. Anyway, we were surprised just how good the facilities were, with flushing toilets and cold showers available - and fresh drinking water at each campsite. It's not cheap to visit, but it is well worth both the money and the effort, and we could have easily stayed more than the three nights we'd allowed.
It's a unique place. Whilst we knew from mates that the fishing was excellent, we arrived with no real expectations or plans....other than just to soak up whatever was on offer. Obviously, the scenery kind of speaks for itself....with rocky red headlands fringing the emerald blue waters of the bay between deserted beaches. Apart from one other couple, we were pretty much on our own at Wiligi - you can't buy that kind of isolation. Not a bad environment for relaxing, reading and family time around the campfire.
Even in late June it was warm enough by southerners' standards - but the odd dorsal fin cruising metres from shore, and purported recent sightings of Midnight the friendly 5m croc left us highly reluctant to take a dip. Reuben did reckon you could probably have a crack at getting your bottom half wet, but you might only get your top half back. Message received....and we settled for a splash in the bucket.
We fished, we read, we walked and we played games and relaxed. In retrospect, the one thing that we probably would have / should have organised in advance were some cultural experiences - which we had naively thought we could perhaps pick up though osmosis. Whilst we had great yarns with Reuben and he did fill us in on some of the local history, we definitely weren't around long enough to really get the drum. Perhaps the Injalak Arts Centre in Gunbalanya would have been a good place for us to have started. Next time.
Fishing
Whilst definitely not fishing experts, we did spend a reasonable amount of time with rod in hand - and comfortably proved the concept that even a numpty can catch a fish up here. I managed to land a pretty little (very little) Mangrove Jack off the rocks, and hooked what I am sure was a "metery" Barra in Midnight's water hole in a creek up the beach.....but....ummm...I didn't land it. Still counts though doesn't it?
For consistent adrenaline though, it was hard to beat the day we hired one of Reuben's boats for a bit of blue water fishing - and we had plenty of success trolling around the reefs not far offshore. We were literally catching fish ever few minutes, with plenty of double and triple hook ups, which was great fun for all - bar our resident vegetarian Sophie. God knows what we would have caught if we knew what we were doing!
Our mates had "spoken wistfully" of catching "a Barra each cast" at a creek about 20km away from camp a few weeks earlier - but when we asked Reuben for directions, he suggested it would probably be a bit too much of an "adventure" to take with the whole family. Intriguing. With a bit of luck we'll be back, and better prepared.
Getting to Wiligi
The drive into Wiligi is rough enough - but beautiful. Once through Kakadu (which is dead easy on tar roads these days) - the first potential challenge is Cahill's Crossing over the East Alligator River. It turns out all the NT News headlines and pictures of cars being washed into Croc infested waters had us a little bit over-spooked.....and a dry season crossing within a couple of hours of low tide is no drama at all. We used the Willy Weather app months in advance to plan our day - crossing according to the tide. We would have been flat out getting the rims of the wheels wet. A bit of an anti-climax in some ways....a relief in others.
It was then a bit of a roughish sort of run below the Arnhem Land escarpment toward Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) - across floodplains teeming with birdlife. In all seriousness, this was a highlight of our top end trip, and a bit like the Kakadu Yellow Waters cruise...except on wheels.
There were some pretty serious washouts - particularly after we took a wrong turn and travelled through the Gunbalanya settlement - and a number of creek crossings, a couple of which Reuben had marked with "Big Crocs DON'T STOP!" on the mud map he'd given us. And for 'bushfire anxious' southerners, it was a little bit different to be driving through the controlled burns of the traditional owners with a Learner Driver behind the wheel......but that's all part of the fun.
It is imperative to book well in advance - and Reuben, as the traditional owner, is very efficient at organising the required permits and paperwork. Wiligi really is a special place.
From Wiligi, we moved on to Katherine and the Nitmiluk National Park.
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