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Published: October 17th 2008
Makuk, Barramundi Gorge
Looking out over sheltered rainforest and open floodplainMy final boat cruise was friday evening. I packed my bags and left at sunrise with one of the same tour groups the next morning, bound for two days in Kakadu National Park.
Many thanks to Debden, the driver, who agreed to take me on board at very short notice for the small price of a crate of beer.
The park changes massively between wet and dry, and large areas periodically become completely inaccessible due to flooding. At this time of year most of the waterfalls are reduced to a small trickle, but it is in the shape of the rocks you can see how powerful these rivers can be during the wet season.
The morning of the first day was spent swimming at the beautiful Barramundi Gorge. The waterfalls here are still running, and there are steep sided plunge pools several metres deep, so there was lots of jumping and diving from the surrounding rock features.
That evening we drove out to Ubirr, where there are several aboriginal rock paintings of indeterminate age. I didn't know much about it before, but it turns out that these paintings were a visual aid in teaching hunting and fishing knowledge.
There are some very well-observed anatomical drawings of fish and turtles.
The view from the flat rock here was a great spot to watch the sun go down over the river plain to the west. This view was largely unspoilt by the hordes of other tourists who also gathered there.
The second day was a visit to the legendary Twin and Jim Jim falls, in the furthest reachable corner of the park and nestled in dark rainforest under the shade of the Arnhem plateau.
Twin Falls is only accessible by a ferry, and the river here is full of freshwater crocodiles. There was no swimming allowed at this time because saltwater crocodiles have also been seen.
Jim Jim Falls is a really popular swimming spot, despite both waterfalls being now almost completely dry, and our group were lucky to be one of the earlier ones there.
It's impossible to get across in the photos how truly massive the surrounding cliff faces are. The Jim Jim plunge pool was completely shadowed by the overhanging cliffs and in darkness for the whole day.
More good swimming was had here (I can now swim like a fish) before the long drive back
Some Kind Of Rock Frog
I nearly stepped in this fellow. into Darwin.
It was a bit of a shock to be back in the city again, surrounded by people after pretty much 3 months away. Naturally a couple of nights of partying were naturally needed to help me adjust...
So my vegetarian/pescetarian diet has been suspended for the moment, initially because the situation out there was 'eat steak or starve', but now simply because it's easier - even potato salads here have bacon in them, and kangaroo is one of the cheapest things to eat (I personally think everyone should eat kangaroo instead of beef).
One of the first things I did on my return was to go out and sample some crocodile meat. One of the common questions I was asked was 'what does crocodile taste like?'.
I can now finally tell you; it's a little bit like fish, and a bit like chicken, but it really depends on how you cook it.
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