Kakadu National Park

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Day 13 - Thursday July 12th - Kakadu National Park

After watching the sky turn amazing shades of pink and orange just before sunrise through our holey mosquito net, we got up and had a spot of brekkie before heading off to Gunlom Falls. As we drove in we were passed by lots of cars driving out. The camping area at Gunlom was pretty big and had we stayed there the night we would not have had the same experience as we had camping at Kambolgie.

The hike up to the pools at the top of the falls was only 1km long but was classified as ‘extremely hard’ due to the steepness of the path and the rocks you had to constantly clamber over. As usual, the kids bolted to the top and the adults trailed behind at a leisurely pace. Gunlom Falls was everything we had expected (we had seen it listed in the top 10 views in an Australian tourist magazine) and had some additional surprises. Picture rock pools overlooking tree-filled plains, some hundreds of metres below. Then imagine the rock pools and gorge extending further back into the escarpment with space to explore the waterways. Picture brilliant blue skies and lush greenery. We spent a couple of hours enjoying the amazing natural creation with just a handful of other visitors, feeling really lucky. The other thing to mention about Gunlom Falls is that it is a pretty safe place to have a dip as it would be very very very unusual to find saltwater crocs up that high in the cliffs.

Once down on the plain we went to see the plunge pool at the bottom of the falls. That pool was not so safe and Anna actually spotted a freshwater croc lurking at the other side of the pool. Needless to say the kids’ dip in that pool was pretty short.

We took advantage of the barbecues in the camping area to cook ourselves a late morning brekkie of bacon, sausage and egg wrap, before Dave proceeded to almost set his car on fire making us a cup of tea. Something wrong with the seal on the gas cooker. Or something. Anyway, it was quite dramatic but not a disaster and nothing that the master couldn’t fix.

Back at the campsite we again found ourselves having to pack up in the midday heat but we have had almost 2 weeks to practice and have now got the pack-up time down to around 30 mins (longer if the kids still have the washing up to do). Next stop was the information centre for the Yellow Water boat cruise, which had been highly recommended to us. We drove for around an hour to the resort, had a beer and booked the sunrise cruise for the next morning, starting at 6.45am. Our camping options were the resort or a couple of other bushcamp sites within 15 kms. In the end, despite the lure of the bar, warm showers and pool at the resort, we plumped for the Jim Jim Billabong campsite, 10 mins from the Yellow Waters boat ramp. Once again it turned out to be a good decision as there were only a few other campers there and it felt like we were properly making the most of being in the Kakadu National Park.

We were only mildly concerned when the skies filled with smoke and it started raining ash due to a nearby bushfire. The dry season is when all of the controlled burning takes place and we assumed everything was under control. When the nearest billabong is supposedly out of bounds due to saltwater crocs and the place is under about to get burned down, where do you go? Luckily we didn’t have to make that decision and the evening went very smoothly. The camp oven was put to good use cooking a rib eye roast on the campfire and we cooked baked potatoes in the embers. Very gourmet, especially with the obligatory marshmallows for dessert. It had been another fantastic day – marred only by the fact that we had left one of our backpacks at the car park at Gunlom Falls, 2 hours drive away so there was no going back for it. Gone forever was a packet of dried apricots, dried prunes (healthy hiking snacks!), our microfibre camping towels (small and light and great for drying off after dips in gorges), one bottle of sunscreen , Anna’s cap and sunnies and Mark’s cap.

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