Bamurru Plains

Bamurru Plains is one of the Luxury Lodges of Australia, located on the floodplain about 200 km east of Darwin. During the Wet, for about three months of the year, the area is covered in water and is completely inaccessible.

We've had a particularly wet Wet this year, and we wanted to visit this resort as soon as it opened (March) while the floodplains were still, well, flooded. The area has dried out enough for vehicles to get through, but some roads are still under water.

So, glamping at Bamurru Plains. The tents have mesh around three sides, providing a 270 degree view of the surroundings from inside the tent. You can see out but not in. Buffalo, magpie geese and various other wildlife graze 10 metres away, geckos live on the inside mesh, and who needs an alarm clock when birds and animals start vocalising before sunrise?

The bathrooms are built with local, natural materials: the showerhead hangs from a piece of driftwood from the ocean (5 km away as the crow flies) and the light switches have been repurposed from old homesteads. The whole camp is solar powered. There is no TV, wifi or mobile connection. I thought I’d be panic-stricken at being disconnected from the world but it was remarkably soothing.

There's good food, a good bar, good chairs and good books in the main lodge. And there's the swimming pool.

Our evening safari drive included drinks and canapes … okay, there are no lions or elephants, but the landscape has its own charms.

The lodge occupies a private section of Swim Creek Station, a buffalo pastoral property that runs about 4,000 water (Asian) buffalo and Italian buffalo. Asian buffalo have the wide sweeping horns; Italian buffalo have the more tightly curled horns. They interbreed quite happily.

In the past, horses were used to muster the buffalo, but now the stock is mustered with helicopters and quad bikes, and then live-shipped to Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia for meat. It seems a bit ironic that they’re going back to Asia when they came from there in the first place, but there you go. The ex-muster horses now run wild, perfectly comfortable in their surroundings and quite happy to co-exist with their ex-musterees.

The floodplain at this time of the year is bird nirvana. Whistling kites and black kites, white-bellied sea eagles, red-winged parrots, corellas, cockatoos, jabiru (storks), kingfishers, cuckoo shrikes, and of course magpie geese.

Lots and lots of magpie geese. Bamurru is the word for magpie geese in the local Aboriginal language.

There are jacana out on the water. Jacana are those perky, red-capped, spindly-legged, long-toed birds that walk on lily pads. Their babies are balls of fluff. When danger looms, the father jacana grabs the young 'uns, pops them under his wings, and runs away. These little fellas seem to be doing okay running on their own.

We went out on the quad bikes one evening. Despite the watery surroundings, the bikes still kick up dust … the effect of dust + bug spray + sunscreen + perspiration on one’s skin = thick cake of brown paste. Most attractive, if you’re a warthog. Our destination was a billabong a few kilometres from the lodge. Our young guide was quite concerned when Ken wandered off to the water’s edge. Lurking crocodiles!

It’s not only the big animals that are interesting. We found an army of meat ants attacking a termite mound – the cunning insects block up the exit holes, take over the mound and then have a captive larder of termite food. We also spotted some green ant nests. Catch a green ant, tap its bottom, and it squirts a fizzy lemonade-y liquid onto your tongue. It might deter its natural enemies but it’s delicious to humans. You then gently replace the depleted ant in its nest and find another one to give you a fizz.

The peak experience is the airboat experience on the floodplain. This is limited to a few months of the year, at the tail end of the Wet. The airboats are powered by a V8 engine, have a Teflon coating on their underside, and are quite fast and incredibly noisy. (Ear muffs mandatory.)

It’s an extraordinary experience sailing over grasslands, and seeing fields of waterlilies between trees. And birds … birds and buffaloes, and magpie geese.

It’s pretty civilised having a coffee and a fresh muffin out on the watery plains, early in the morning, in the middle of nowhere. There’s plenty of barramundi in these waters, so fishing is popular here too.

Ken took some lovely videos from the airboat adventures. Here they are, with no further ado. Turn up your sound ...