I went on the 4 day Kakadu / Katherine Tour with autopia. I was the only one who booked a camping site, which was inconvenient for the tour I think, so they gave me a free upgrade. The rooms were very lovely, clean, had airconditioning and towels.
One evening, we ate at the hotel restaurant. The other evenings the food was quite simple. I don’t eat meat and got pasta with a scoop of pesto one night. No vegetables at all. For lunch we had a salad once and mostly wraps with the left over vegetables from day 2.
The Kakadu park is a lovely park and this tour makes you see a lot of it in a short while. You go to nice gorges and waterfalls and are able to swim at the loveliest places. The pace is quite slow though, I’m used to “beating the heat” from my other tours here. But breakfast took 1,5 hours most days, with breakfast at 7am, we didn’t leave before 900/930.
The group consisted of retirees, with one 50 year old man and me; 37 years old. I would like to have known beforehand, because now i didn’t get to see the Jim Jim falls, because the guide decided the rest of the group wasn’t fit enough to go there and made it seem the hike up there was horrible, with nothing to see there anyway this time of year. She did provide me with two other nice walks/hikes though, while the rest rested.
Those were nice efforts from the tour guide, Dani. Most of the time, i found her behavior and attitude quite shocking. She set the tone the first morning, when she yelled at a passenger twice in the first few hours. (Once for asking where the animal was Dani was talking about, once for asking if they could have a toilet break while driving.)
Dani comes of as agitated and agressive.
She seemed very stressed but didn’t allow any help with setting up dinner or cleaning up. When she was away to get the car tire fixed, the group helped (eventually, 90% was afraid to do anything at first) with putting some stuff away. Dani came back, yelled angrily to take everything out, and then proceeded to tell the group to put the stuff back in the exact same boxes they just came from.
On the other hand, she seemed to want praise for the basic things guides do, like making meals. Dani told us she would bake something the next morning, I told her there was no need for me. The next morning l, she made burgers anyway, at 9am. Her reaction made it clear that I had to eat the burger, either now or later. Refusing wasn’t an option, because she made it especially for me. This is nót something I expect from a guide, a stranger, or anyone.
She also had a go at a couple of strangers, in their own car. She made them stop their car for something petty. She even yelled “get the f*ck out of my water hole”, about a public swimming place. Her driving was quite rough at times, we went 40-50 km/h on a bumpy road, which made the people jump up from their seats, made the car slip and we got a flat tire. Two times she drove in the wrong direction, four travelers noticed but were to affraid to get scolded so didn’t dare to say anything.