Day 101 – 28th August – Nitmulik National Park

Today started out much the same as yesterday.  We packed up the camper then headed back to the falls for a swim.  This time we only made it as far as the bottom pool.  It was a long swim over to the falls, but with the help of the noodles, Dave and the kids made it… that's them on the right toward the back

We hit the road again and made it back into Katherine.  Our Katherine/Darwin/Kakadu triangle is complete.  We have had some pretty full on days so we had a lazy afternoon revisiting the hot springs just behind our caravan park.  Starting to feel a little water logged…

Day 100 – 27th August – Kakadu

What better way to start our 100^th day on the road than with a swim at our favourite spot in Kakadu?  Yep, we loved Maguk so much we couldn’t possibly leave without another play in the top pools.  We packed up the camper ready to leave, and since by 9am it’s so unbearably hot here (still 37 degree days) we headed back in for a quick dip.  This time we knew where to find the proper path so it wasn’t too much effort to get to the pools.

Here’s Aiden jumping in from the highest point he could find… 

Another view back over the waterfall to the plunge pool below 

All too soon our time was up and we hit the road again.  Our destination, another waterfall with pools at the top where we could explore and jump!   We actually popped out of Kakadu National Park and into Nitmulik National Park (just out of Katherine) and stopped at a place called Edith Falls.  Once again we did a dump and run with the camper, choosing to not set it up in the heat of the day.  After hiking for about 1km, here’s our first look at the top pool 

Although not as much fun as the pools at Maguk, it was still a really pleasant swim in an awesome environment.  

You can’t take him anywhere… he still insists on doing a bombie EVERYWHERE we go…

Dave and the kids climbed to the top of the falls and found some more pools and cascades to play in. 

On our walk back to the camp we stopped at a lookout.  The falls at the top of the photo are the ones into the “Top Pool” where we were just swimming.  The lower waterfall flows into the “Middle Pool” and I’m not sure if you can actually get in there for a swim. Way downstream, the campground is located alongside the “Lower Pool” which is actually known as Edith Falls.

Our day ended with a Ranger talk about crocodiles.  The kids came home with a head full of information, some safety advice and a whole lot of gory stories…

Day 99 – 26th August – Kakadu

We packed up camp and started heading south today.  Maybe it’s a false hope, but here’s hoping it gets cooler as we go…

We stopped at Yellow Waters for a quick look.  It was another wetland much like all the other wetlands we’ve seen so far… 

We ducked into the accommodation lodge here (Cooinda) for an icecream.  Megan found some frangipani flowers, as you do in a tropical climate…  

From Yellow Waters we kept on our southerly path to a place called Maguk.  Maguk will be forever in our hearts as our favourite place in Kakadu…   We dumped the camper at the campground, which incidentally, is bush camping at its best… there were only us and two other groups in a bush setting.  There were birds galore (saw our first quails) but unfortunately there were also flies and mozzies galore too.

Anyway, we dumped the camper and headed straight into the falls.  Our lovely boat driver at Twin Falls had said his favourite place were the top falls at Maguk, so we were full of anticipation.  Here’s the walk in… Aiden is standing at the spot where we cross the river. 

A gorgeous pool along the way, of course, no swimming.  Not sure why we can’t swim at the pools along the way but we can swim at the end?  Don’t know how that works? 

This is the plunge pool at the base of the Maguk Falls.  And you know what?  The water was NOT cold!  For the first time on our trip the water temperature was what you expect in the tropics… bliss! 

We made the long swim over to the falls 

After our first exploratory swim it was time to find these top pools we had heard about.  There had been nothing about them written on the information sign and we hadn’t seen any paths leading off that way.  All we could go by were the people we had seen walking along the top of the falls and disappearing off to our left, so we had to assume there was a path there somewhere?  We found a way to cross the river and then we went bush… beating a path along a non-existent track that was hopefully leading us to the right spot.  After about 10-15 minutes of scrambling over rocks and through the bush we stumbled over a path… yes, a proper track… would have made life much simpler had we found that from the start!

We followed the path to the cliffs overlooking the plunge pool.  Here we are looking back down on the spot where we initially entered the pool. 

A little further along we spotted the top pools.  This is the climb down into them.  It’s hard to tell but that dark patch in front of Megan and veering to the left are the pools. 

Here’s a better view.  The water flowing off to the bottom right of the photo is flowing over the waterfall and down into the plunge pool.  The water at the back left is coming from more pools and cascades around the corner.  The thing is, these pools were deep… deep enough that we spent ages jumping and bombing from the rocks. 

Proof that even Mum can be an idiot… 

We swam up and around the corner to find a narrow channel.  At the end of the channel there was a small waterfall from the pool upstream. 

Maguk ticked all the boxes for our little family… there were interesting pools that we could explore and there were pools deep enough to jump into from great heights.  We had an awesome afternoon doing exactly that…

Day 98 – 25th August – Kakadu

We set off for a big day of exploring.  It’s been a while but we were back on a heavily corrugated track… we thought we’d left all those on the Gibb River Road…

Our first destination was Jim Jim Falls.  The hike into the falls was only 1km in the blissful shade of the monsoon forest, but there was a fair amount of scrambling over rocks.  This is about halfway along the track to the falls. 

When we reached the falls we discovered that the Jim Jim Falls were actually missing the “falls” part… that’s the problem with coming so late in the dry season – everything is drying up or has dried up.  The positive of having no water flowing over is the chance of a saltwater croc washing over into the plunge pool at the base of the falls is decreased significantly (doesn’t mean they can’t get there by other means).  So, for the first time in a while, we were able to have a refreshing swim.  In this heat I am not even going to complain about how cold the water was… 

Here’s the view looking away from the falls.  We discovered the tour groups actually walk to the beach on the left, dump their stuff there, wade through that pool of water just in front of Dave, then scramble over a few rocks to get to the base of the waterfall.  It meant a whole lot less rock scrambling than what we did… 

After lunch we hit the dirt track again to head out to Twin Falls.  Dave was a bit nervous about this one.  We had heard there was one creek crossing that was 0.7m deep.  Of course, in this country, you can’t simply walk across the crossing to check it out… or the crocs will get you.  Before we left in the morning he had a look in the car manual… the maximum depth we were good for was 0.7m!  We could do it (in theory).  
Here’s the crossing 

It was deep… deeper than anything we had crossed so far… but we made it with no issue… phew!

It turns out the Twin Falls are at the end of a gorge and the only way to get in there is to pay for a boat ride to take you three quarters of the way.  These guys have the best job ever!  They hang around all day in a superb environment, ferrying people up and down a truly beautiful gorge… I could handle a job like that!  The nice thing about the boat trip is they gave you some information about the history of the falls and how the aborigines used the area.  Unfortunately there is no swimming here.  There used to be a safety net to keep the crocs out so people could swim.  Then one day a 4m croc turned up on the wrong side of the net and from then on all swimming has been banned.  To help cope with the heat they have installed a few showers where you pump the water yourself directly from the river below.  Here’s Aiden cooling  off before we got on the boat.  

These photos were taken on the boat trip up the gorge.   

The short walk the rest of the way to the falls.  I hadn’t even seen the falls yet and I was happy to claim this as my favourite spot in Kakadu so far.  I have already said it… it is a beautiful, beautiful spot…  my photos will never do it justice  

At last, the falls at the end.  They are called Twin Falls for the obvious reason, there are two separate falls.  The wide black stain on the left is one fall and you can just make out a thin stream off to the right. 

Check out the pool at the bottom of the falls – inviting huh?  How incredibly frustrating that there is this gorgeous pool in a gorgeous environment and we can’t swim in it? 

We weren’t allowed to swim, but there was no mention of not playing under the waterfall…

Here’s Aiden being frustrated he couldn’t jump into the water.  See that contraption on the right.  Yep, that’s a croc trap… 

The walk back 

 Half way back on the boat and the coolest tour guide ever let the kids drive the boat!

Day 97 – 24th August – Kakadu

It is so hot here…. hot and muggy… who’d have thought it was like this in August?

Today was hard work… we were out exploring in the heat of the day.  Our first stop was Anbangbang Billabong.  On our travels we have learned that a billabong is a pool of water that never dries up…  This one was quite pretty with the escarpment in the background.  We saw all the usual birds we come to expect at a billabong but unfortunately, no new birds for our list. 

This is the path around the edge of the billabong.  Check out the distance between the path and the actual water… that’s the stay-away-from-the-crocs-safety-zone 

Just up the road is Nourlangie Rock, a popular spot for viewing Aboriginal rock art.  Following the circular loop walk you first come across this awesome cave.  It is actually an occupation cave that was inhabited by the Aborigines over a very long period of time.   Check out the rock on the ground at the centre of the photo.  If you look closely you can see some small potholes.  These hollows are made by thousands of years of grinding seeds and things with a grindstone. 

We were super lucky and happened to walk into the cave just before a Ranger came along to give a presentation.  He was an extremely passionate and intelligent young fellow.  His talk was about the occupation of the cave through the ages.  He had a whole range of artifacts that an archaeologist had dug up some time ago.  The items ranged from 8,000 years old to several hundred years old.  He spoke about the landscape and how it changed from a pre-estuarine to estuarine to a freshwater environment and how the weapons and tools and animals and plant life changed as these environments changed.  It was a really interesting talk.  It was fantastic for the kids too… 

There were a lot of caves in this particular area, most with art of some kind.  Here are some people getting their groove on… 

This guy is an evil spirit who eats women after beating them with a yam… true story…. 

Our visit ended with a climb to the top of Nourlangie Rock for an awesome view over the Anbangbang Billabong (clear patch just to the left of Dave’s head), the nearby caves and in the distance, Arnhem Land. 

We drove back into Jabiru exhausted… this heat is so draining… While we were driving around looking for the shopping centre we found the local school.  There were about twenty trees out the front of the school that were absolutely jam-packed with bats.  The noise was horrendous!  Every tree looked like this