Birds, crocodiles and dingoes leave Anthony Dennis in awe - and with the shivers.
Until now, I always thought I knew the true meaning of goosebumps. It's just before dawn in the Top End, as the sun slips above a paperbark forest treeline.
Our air-boat skids across the muddy surface of a vast sodden floodplain that in the wet can extend all the way to the Arafura Sea. As we power along, earmuffs minimising the racket from the engine and propeller, hundreds - maybe thousands - of magpie geese take off in near-unison before us, their honking sounding like Hong Kong in peak rush hour.
The Everglades-style airboat, with its Teflon underbelly designed to ease its passage along the shallow waters, may be a somewhat unwelcome visitor in these parts for the magpie geese, but their true predator, the saltwater crocodile, is ever-present, although not the most physically dominant creature on the floodplain.
Hulking Asian water buffalo, an introduced species of cattle, dodging the airboat are rather less elegant than the magpie geese, or "bamurru" as they're called in the local Aboriginal language. The lumbering buffalo are the bovine equivalent of a four-wheel drive, biologically suited and fully adapted to the sludgy conditions. 
Everywhere there's a strange, low-frequency buzz emanating from the massed magpie geese as Riley, our young guide and airboat driver, cuts the engine to watch a jabiru, also known as a black-neck stork, breakfasting on an eel.
I've never suffered from an itch to twitch, but seeing the birdlife we're spotting - including cattle egrets hitching a ride on the back of the buffalo - I suddenly get the appeal.
It's taken this visit to Bamurru Plains, a remote, luxurious lodge about three hours' drive from Darwin, to uncover my inner twitcher. Bamurru Plains is part of the private Swim Creek Station, a vast crocodile-infested property, a tiny part of which borders Kakadu National Park - a World Heritage site.
Our accommodation, separate to the working station, is a spacious timber-floored bungalow - one of 10 - positioned on the edge of a floodplain, now sucked dry of nearly all its wet-season water.
There is not a single pane of glass with our accommodation, which rather accurately bills itself as "Wild Bush Luxury".
Instead it's encased in an insect-proof, hessian-like screen, which gives the view outside a weird yellow-brown tinge.
There's no airconditioning but six fans throughout the bungalow keep it tolerably cool by night and reasonably so by day.
The main camp is our base and we make guided forays in the cooler early mornings and late afternoon. The hotter middle of the day is reserved for eating, drinking, reading and napping while Agile wallabies (as the local species is known) hop, rest and feed unmolested through the camp.
There is no television reception, no internet and no mobile coverage providing, as it eventuates, the perfect opportunity to go digitally cold bush turkey for a few days; a luxury its own right.
Indeed, the closest you get to a serviceable Twitter account out here is the booklet provided by Bamurru Plains, in which guests are invited to tick off the birdlife you've spotted. Ornithology, unsurprisingly, is big at Bamurru, and getting bigger.
The floodplains support dense populations of waterbirds, egrets, whistling ducks (yes, they really do whistle, and don't quack), crakes, jabiru, brolgas, raptors and more.
Bamurru Plains recently unveiled "The Hide", a six-metre-high architect-designed structure topped with a 24-square-metre platform.
Built from a recycled shipping container, it is positioned amid the canopies of trees overlooking the floodplain.
It's certainly not some flimsy timber construction such as you might find in Africa.
It's been built to withstand the floods of the wet season and the Top End's potentially destructive cyclones and it's not just for twitchers. If isolation heaped upon isolation appeals to you, guests can be dropped at The Hide for a night and collected the next morning, with an emergency satellite phone provided by the lodge as a standby.
But for a neophyte twitcher like me, you don't need a flash hide to get a true sense of the birdlife here, since it is all around you.
One afternoon at Bamurru Plains, I'm not sure if I've been caught in the midst of a sequel of The Birds, or a re-enactment of the bombing of Darwin. Hundreds of squawking corellas swarm above the lodge, headed for the termite mound-festooned floodplain where they feed on seeds.
"The corellas are cheeky buggers," says Justin, one of our guides. "They love to creep up on the wallabies and bite them on their tails."
Of course, the crocodiles are less known for their light-hearted traits. On a four-wheel-drive tour one afternoon to Mary Plains Billabong, we spot through binoculars the rotting carcass of a water buffalo, the victim, Justin tells our small group, of a lone croc living in the dwindling dry-season waters.
At Swim Creek Station, named for a lone stream where it's safe for a dip and home to 5000-6000 head of introduced buffalo, such attacks are not welcomed by graziers.
Yet the crocodiles aren't the only predator out here. "If you see the wallabies scattering across the floodplain in front of the camp, you know there's a dingo about."
As we head back to the camp for a gourmet communal dinner with the other guests - a collection of Australians, Dutch and Belgians - the fading light turns the grey termite mounds into misshapen neglected gravestones.
We're joined on our excursion by a family of wealthy Flemish people, who are acutely aware that they're travelling in a part of the world where "stations the size of Belgium" is no cliche.
Swim Creek Station, after all, is a 300-square-kilometre property, of which 100 square kilometres is water of some quantity, depending on the season.
When we visit Bamurru Plains, the dry season is drawing to a close but there is still an enormous amount of water on one section of Swim Creek.
Even though the floodplain is evaporating, the paperbark forests are still a watery wonderland.
Their exfoliating trees, branches and exposed roots reveal the levels the water reached at the height of the wet season.
A haven for yet more birdlife, it's every bit as stunningly beautiful as anything I've experienced in Kakadu National Park itself, even though Swim Creek Station is a wholly private property-cum-accidental nature hotspot.
At breakfast on the last morning of our two-night, wish-it-was-three-night, stay at Bamurru Plains, someone notices that the wallabies are retreating in large numbers from the flat, largely desolate floodplain.
The cause of the commotion soon reveals itself.
A lone dingo is spotted stalking the wallabies, darting from one side to another, trying to target a member of its mob.
All of the guests and guides down their cutlery and pour out of the main camp building to watch this spectacle of nature, which, on this occasion, the wallabies survive.
It's yet another one of those goosebumps moments that has turned a visit to this corner of the Top End into an utterly unforgettable experience.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar all operate regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne. See qantas.com, virginaustralia.com and jetstar.com. Bamurru Plains is a three-hour drive from Darwin, with a large section of the private access road off the Arnhem Highway unsealed. Check with your rental car company as to whether you will need to hire a four-wheel drive vehicle. There is an airstrip at Swim Creek Station, used by daily charter flights to and from Darwin.
STAYING THERE
Rates for Bamurru Plains start from $590 an adult, twin share. Accommodation is in a safari-style bungalow with an en suite, with all meals and selected beverages from an open bar included. Guided wilderness activities are not included, but can be booked and paid for locally, subject to availability. Packages are available that include guide activities. The main season for wilderness safaris is between   May and   October, with the lodge closed during the wet season, between   November and   January.
MORE INFORMATION
travelnt.com
bamurruplains.com
wildbushluxury.com
The writer travelled as a guest of Tourism Northern Territory and Wild Bush Luxury's Bamurru Plains.
Into the wild: Bamurru Plains
traveller.com.au