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Published: November 30th 2009
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Termite mounds
I totally forgot to mention these- aren't they cool! One night in Darwin between sections of the tour saw Agnes, myself and a Swiss guy in his mid-30's heading off to the Nirvana, an Indian/ Thai/ Malaysian restaurant with live entertainment. The food was good, the entertainment was not. It was just another poor open mic night.
The following morning saw us heading off to Litchfield National Park. The group was in large part the same as from the Alice to Darwin leg, although reduced from 24 to 16 people. This change in my opinion made things a lot nicer and I felt there was a better atmosphere even with the same people.
The first part of the day was spent splashing around in the water. First was Florence Falls a picturesque waterfall with a good deep pool for swimming in. On the way the guide stopped to show us some green ants and encouraged us to lick the abdomen for a massive dose of lime taste that zipped straight through the tongue. Who would have thought this trip would have involved me licking an ant's bum?
The second watery splashing about bit was at Buley Rockhole, a series of very small 'waterfalls' interspersed with deeper pools.
Magnetic termite mounds
They align themselves along a north-south axis as a form of air conditioning. Also- doesn't it look like a graveyard? I was really nice to sit in the waterfalls- like a natural jacuzzi! It was also possible to jump in from a height of a couple of metres into some of the deeper pools. Of course I did. At both places, Agnes kept to the shallows, and she seemed to particularly like the jacuzzis.
The afternoon saw us go on a river boat cruise in the Mary River wetlands around a billabong. A billabong is, for the geographically inclined, basically the Aussie word for an oxbow lake- where a meandering river cuts across the meander which separates from the river itself to form a crescent shaped lake. Cruising around we saw a good amount of wildlife- various birds and both freshwater and saltwater crocodiles. I'm very pleased about that, as seeing wild crocs was one of my main aims of my trip to the 'Top End' of Australia.
The next day saw us go to Kakadu National Park (possibly named as a corruption of the German word for Cockatoo). In the morning we had an awesome although very sweaty walk around Ubirr- the site of a large number of Aboriginal Rock Art sites, featuring depictions of various Aborigine
Florence Falls
Good to look at, good to swim under legends and lots of pictures of fish and other wildlife. This also included examples of 'contact art'- drawings done post contact with Europeans in which items such as shoes, rifles and people with their hands obviously in their pockets suddenly appear. One interesting feature of the way Aborigine art works is the importance placed on the act of creating the art, rather the art itself. This means that art is frequently just drawn over by subsequent artists. Imagine that in Western civilisation- what would happen if I just went up and doodled over the Mona Lisa! As part of this trip we climbed to the top of a hill to some spectacular views of the floodplain and a number of dust devils scattered around, and including a view shown in the film Crocodile Dundee.
In the afternoon we headed over to Maguk for more swimming in Barramundi Gorge. I may be giving the impression that mostly this trip was just about swimming in gorges and to be fair this is mostly true- but in the heat and humidity this was no bad thing! Maguk had a couple of different features to other gorges. There was a small underwater swim
Crocodile!
A freshie, I think through about a metre and a half underwater which I eventually managed to do. This was a bit nerve-wracking as I really hate having my eyes open underwater, and therefore did it with them shut- some issues finding the cave then. I'm not sure it made so much difference as tannin in the water from rainfall run-off made the water black. I also did the jump from the cliff into the water. It seemed really high from the jumping point and a bit past my comfort zone, so I was a bit disappointed to find it was only about 4m. That doesn't seem so far at all! Another mildly freaky bit was a small rounded hollow full of water but almost separate from the rest of the gorge. Because of the separation the water mixed less and had a thermocline (a dramatic difference in water temperature over a very small distance) meaning that my feet were several degrees colder than the rest of my body whilst treading water in it.
Anyway enough about Maguk. That was the last place on the days itinerary. The following day- more waterfalls and gorges! The morning saw us taking an extremely bumpy track
Spider on waterlilly flower
I just can't believe this photo came out so clearly to Jim Jim Falls, followed by a kilometre long trek over some very broken, boulder strewn ground to the Falls themselves, where we had of course another bit of a swim and a sit in the shallows where quite a few fish were swimming and being quite keen on eating small bits of biscuit we threw into the water for them. After that was Twin Falls. On postcards I have seen this cascading down the sides of the gorge with two impressive waterfalls (hence the name). However at such times the falls are inaccessible over land, only reachable by helicopter, so when we were there Twin Trickles would have been a better name. This was the last part of the trip.
The Kakadu trip was felt by both Agnes and myself to be the best part of her time in Australia- I'm sorry I don't think my write-up has done it justice, but I suppose I have a lot to catch up on and if I spend all my time trying to do the perfect, comprehensive and lively blog I wouldn't have time to do anything else. I'm sure I have mixed up the order of some parts or
Aborigine Rock Art
Fish! They love 'em around Kakadu way maybe missed out some stuff (there was a bit of a walk through a rainforest at one point too).
But after that we went back to Darwin where Agnes had her final day in Australia. This was mostly a fairly lazy day- a bit of a walk along the Esplanade near the waterfront and onto Lameroo Beach. This was Agnes only beach in Oz! Sadly it wasn't up to much- she seemed to like, but that is because she didn't go up the WA coast. I just thought it was tiny and covered in rubbish, although we did see a 'thing' in the water, possibly a dolphin or a crocodile, or maybe the Loch Ness monster just got lost. In the evening we had a final meal at a Turkish restaurant and around 22.30 she left the hostel for the airport and that was that- I was a solo traveller again. So the next morning I got on the 07.00 flight to Cairns and said goodbye to the Northern Territory.
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Out of the Desert
Glas you made it in one piece from the Red Centre to the green plants of the jungle! At last you had time tocontiue your blog.They are quite comprehensive, and must take ages to write! Seeing Agnes with a pint surprised me = 1. They still has old fashioned pints 2. The high price of them - double the English prices! Look forward to your observations on the Barries Reef and the sea life acorals!