darwin rental car in kakadu
 

If we were to rent a car in Darwin and drive to Kakadu, I'm wondering about the insurance coverage at night. We have heard that the Ubirr Rock is pretty at sunset, but we would then have to drive back to our hotel (in Kakadu) after dusk.

Do any car companies in Darwin sell extra insurance to cover something like this?

I don't know if they have extra insurance, but I do know that we had to sign a paper saying that we knew there wasn't insurance from pre-dusk to post-dawn. Therefore, we didn't get to see the sunset at Ubirr nor the sunrise tour at Yellow River. Maybe there is a tour you can take that covers the experiences you want. Or if you have time, write the rental car company to check, or just go for it and hope you don't hit any animals. However, the roads in Kakadu are windy and wooded on either side with lots of animals around, so we didn't chance it.
Sally in Seattle (currently in Maui)

We rented from Budget in Darwin and drove to Kakadu. We tried not to drive after dark because of the possibility of hitting wallabies or other wildlife then, but did it in order to see the sunset at Ubirr (which was one of the best things we did). We just drove back to our place very carefully and relatively slowly and didn't have a problem.

Where is your hotel? Kakadu is a big, big place. If you are staying in Jabiru the distance to Ubirr is not that far..maybe about half an hour. If you are staying in Cooinda or elsewhere you would have to drive considerably longer.

We stayed in Jabiru for 2 nights and then moved to Cooinda for our last night so we could be right there to take the 6:45 am Yellow Waters trip. That worked out well for us, even though I don't usually like staying in a place just one night on trips.

Also, check on the mileage for the car. When I booked via the internet they said we'd have 100 km per day free, but when we picked up the car it was 200 km per day, which was definitely needed. The cost per km after the limit would add up very quickly. On the Internet all the companies had the 100 km limit posted as far as I could find, so I don't know why we got the 200 km or if it was a mistake or if they are now all giving 200 km per day. We drove the loop Darwin-Kakadu-Katherine-Mataranka-Katherine-Batchelor-Darwin over 9 days and drove 1800 km.

p.s. if you stay at Cooinda to take the early cruise you can hop on a shuttle bus which takes you from the hotel to the boat ramp (which is only a 5 minute or less drive anyway). If you don't stay there you would have to get up very early and drive before dawn to make the cruise. We didn't think we could manage that so were glad we stayed at Cooinda that last night.

Just thought of this. Do the same rules apply in Alice Springs and the Uluru area?
Makes to difficult to go see sunsets!

So, I've been researching this a bit more--and I haven't found anyway to buy extra insurance.

Our plan had been to stay in Jabiru for the night. We would see Ubirr Rock at sunset, and maybe since it is so close we could risk driving back to the hotel from there. Or maybe we could do this as part of a day-tour of that area--any recommendations?

But, then we really wanted to do the dawn Yellow Water Billabong Cruise the next day. Does anyone one have any idea if there is any alternative means of transportation down to Cooinda that early in the morning? (It won't help us to stay in Cooinda--because then we'd have the same problem with returning from Ubirr Rock the night before).

Thanks for any help or ideas!!

At the risk of being too optimistic I think you would be OK to stay in Jabiru and see the sunset from Nadab lookout at Ubirr. It did not seem that far out that we drove back there after dark. There is some risk but it didn't seem that great to us.

I don't understand about not staying at Cooinda for the night. Why not stay there? The Cooinda resort is nice, or you could book for the camping area. We had a nice night there, enjoyed the bistro and the pool. They had a great trivia game contest in the evening at the bistro which was a lot of fun and you met other people staying there.

Why not stay at Jabiru while you check out Ubirr and then move to Cooinda for a night so you'll be there for the dawn cruise. The Yellow Waters trip at dawn was really great. My 10 yr. old wasn't all that enthralled with getting up so early, but my husband counts it as one of the best things we did.

It's because we will most likely only have the one night in Kakadu. So I guess we'd either have to choose to be near Ubirr Rock or the dawn cruise in Cooinda.

I wonder if the 9:00 a.m. cruise would be almost as nice?

Oh, I didn't realize you were only spending one night there. I think the 9 am cruise would be very nice too. The idea behind the dawn cruise is that the wildlife is most active then and they were certainly out in abundance when we went and the sunrise was really beautiful, but I'm sure you would still see wildlife at 9. I think the middle of the day would be the time to avoid if possible, but the river is so beautiful that just being on it is great.