"If you respect the land, then you will feel the land. Your experience will be one that you cannot get anywhere else in the world."

-Brian Baruwei,Wurrkbarbar clan, Aboriginal Traditional Owner

This is Twin Falls in the dry season, just one of the waterfalls that we visited in Kakadu National Park. (Photograph by Dawn Giorgiani)

After 20 odd hours by plane and a weekend's rest at Darwin in the Top End of Australia, 18 American students, two professors, and three guides found themselves entering the boundaries of Kakadu National Park. This group was part of a Study Abroad program by Michigan State University hosted by the University of New South Wales (Sydney). The caravan of three Toyota Land Cruisers, equipped with handbags, rolled into Kakadu following a three-hour drive into the bush. The rugged terrain, lack of air conditioning and dry heat were all forgotten when we clambered into boats on the Mary River and began to see the wildlife, albeit not the wildlife we were assigned to research. For our particular group of five students, our assignment was to report on the amphibians and freshwater fish of the Kakadu National Park.

Kakadu contains 25% of Australia's freshwater fish species, as well as 30 species of amphibians within its 20,000 square kilometers. The park, one of less than 20 places entered on the World Heritage list, has traditionally been Aboriginal land. Today, the park is shared with the public for tourism and educational purposes. We thought we would have an easy time finding the animals we were asked to report upon, but we were in for quite a surprise.

Little did we know, the amphibians we were searching for were harder to find during the dry season of Northern Australia. This is a time with little rainfall, and consequently, there are fewer sightings of animals that thrive in moist areas. This is not to say that we did not learn anything about our assigned topic -- that would be far from the truth. A place like Kakadu has so much to see, touch, smell, hear, and taste. Although we may have actually seen very little of the species we were asked to report upon, we learned about their habitats and the cultural ties of the indigenous people who share the land with them. Our guides were well qualified and shared their extensive knowledge of the area with us whilst making the whole experience humorous.

We may have come back with few stunning pictures, but our first-hand experience as we journeyed through the magnificent land, the richness of the culture, and the variety of the other wildlife is more than anything we could have ever gained from a textbook or classroom.

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