But all of this is just the beginning. Among dramatic views are also one of the world’s longest surviving cultural landscapes, over 60,000 years. There is a shift in the scenery as we head further east on the Arnhem Highway. We observe the wetlands, floodplains, and savannah woodland hand over the baton to the “stone country,” something so alien that it forces me to reconsider how the world works. Some of Australia’s most important indigenous artwork on rocks and caves dating back 25,000 years have been found and preserved within this part of Kakadu National Park. And this is precisely why Kakadu is on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1981.
“I know Kakadu is a rough destination, but coming here is the only way for you to understand how old our art is,” says the park ranger as we walk along the ancient rock art of the Anbangbang Shelter at Nourlangie, set in red rock cliffs, on a sunshiny morning. Next to it is the Anbangbang Gallery, also one of the most famous rock art sites in the world, featuring vivid Dreaming characters repainted in the 1960s.
“The Gagadju—Kakadu’s indigenous community—have no written language, so these paintings are their history books that have endured through all these years,“ highlights the ranger. “Australian Indigenous art is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world. It is so old, in fact, that examples have been found that depict long-extinct megafauna.“ Putting things into perspective: Aboriginal ancestors started painting on these rocks thousands of years before the Pyramids of Giza were built or Olympians competed on the tracks of ancient Greece.