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!