N.b. Photo slideshows work best on a computer, yet to fix it
HELLOOOOOOOOO! Feel like I’ve got to yell because we are so far away now! True to form I’m weeks behind and I’m writing this from deep in the Kimberley where there hasn’t been reception for a week now so when we get some, you’ll see it!
After Edit Falls the next stop was Kakadu with almost 20,000 square kilometres of pristine World Heritage park to explore. Let’s see how many adjectives I can pump into this inadequate summary of its glory! The road in to Kakadu begins further north of Edith Falls and we turned off what seemed like the never ending Stuart Highway and headed east into the park. We stopped off at the visitors centre to check out the road closures (some are flooded even this far into the dry season) and to pay our $80 each for entry.
Our first stop was Gunlom Falls which is an incredible towering waterfall with a huge swimming hole at the bottom and a steep trek up the side to a natural infinity pool at the top. We walked up and were greeted with a panoramic view of Kakadu in the setting sun and jumped into the water to enjoy. For the best view we got rather close to the edge and some concerned onlookers told Charlotte to chill with her rock scrambling (they had picked up her name from me filming her for about 5 minutes while she was being a chicken about jumping into the cold water).
We continued our waterfall tour with a visit to Maguk falls which although not half as dramatic as Gunlom was an even more beautiful swimming spot in our opinion, and had great rock ledges to jump off! After chatting to several people at Gunlom and Maguk (including a gullible American who took my word at there being crocodiles in the water we were currently swimming in) we were persuaded to suppress our dislike for both tours and early mornings and signed up for the sunrise Yellow Water river cruise the next day.
Our cruise started so unbearably early that we packed up camp in the dark; but was it worth it? Absolutely. We saw 5m saltwater crocodiles, a myriad of birdlife (much of which is only found in Kakadu) and a stunning sunrise on a backdrop of wild horses running across the fields. Our guide was rather hilarious and pointed out that although the boat has lifejackets they won’t really help you if you fall in because you’ll be eaten before you drown. Sweet. We also had the added benefit of having two super keen bird spotters at the front of our boat with some of the biggest camera lenses I’ve ever seen helping out our guide who was skilfully steering, spotting and speaking at the same time. Afterwards we enjoyed the hot buffet breakfast spread which was included in the trip; a nice change from toast!
Next stop was Jim Jim Falls. We scrambled along the trail over bigger and bigger rocks/boulders to get to the main event and met one defeated looking dad with small children walking back to the car park who had decided to call it quits before the end – tough walk for little legs! The pool and falls were well worth the scrambling but I had a lonely swim on my own as Charlotte decided it was too cold for her… A recurrent theme! By the way, if anyone’s going, don’t jump from halfway up the thing like the gumby a few days before us who broke his leg and had to be stretchered back out to the road over the rocks. Sounds painful.
With more daylight and the nearby Twin Falls closed we finished off at Ubirr rock for sunset which has a beautiful view over the floodplain below; just a shame about the hundreds of other tourists who’d had the same idea… There’s also lots of Indigenous rock art there and we listened to the end of the ranger talk where we sadly learnt that their crocodile management program involves going in at the start of the dry season, finding, trapping and removing the smaller saltwater crocs they can to put in a sanctuary or farm (as they will find their way back if moved elsewhere and are too smart to be caught twice), and shooting the ones too big to take out in a ute and giving them to the local Indigenous people to cook. Our concerned friends from Gunlom were also up there who called out to us as ‘Charlotte and Louis’ as they’d assumed I’d put plates on the car with my own name. I assured them I wasn’t that much of a wanker.
As we were on a bit of a schedule to get to the Kimberley we finished the loop of the park, polished off the rest of the Stuart Highway and headed towards Darwin. Along the way we stopped at ARB to check out this elusive wheel bag which they had stock this time – hooray! The design wasn’t great though with a full mesh base in the main section (to let wet things drain) but dust out here gets though EVERYTHING so we decided to skip and find something more dust proof. We checked out a few more 4WD stores and found a Bushranger bag with smaller drainage/dust entry holes which we went ahead and bought. Next we headed to the NT General Store, an absolutely awesome old school camping store, to get our stove looked at. We’re using a dual fuel stove that runs off either petrol or Shellite (clean petrol you can buy from a hardware store) for several reasons we’ll explain in another blog, but the fuel line didn’t quite fit right which meant the tank kept slipping out whilst we were using it and was rather at risk of exploding – not ideal. Unfortunately the online store we bought it from wanted it checked by someone who stocks and uses them before sending out the replacement part in case we were just stupid, so here we were. The helpful guy at the store confirmed it was faulty but they didn’t have stock to replace the part for us so we had to get it mailed ahead to us in Kununurra (we had to pick somewhere a while ahead as mail is sloooow round here); bit of a pain. Jobs done we checked into our apartment (birthday treat for Charlotte) after some very anxious driving around the underground carpark which we were at the exact height limit for, and settled our hanger at a great waterfront café in Nightcliff. On getting back we spent a long time cleaning the dust off ourselves in the apartment, did a grand total of four loads of washing, watched some TV (what a treat!) and I wrapped some presents I’d hidden in the car in preparation for Charlotte’s birthday the next day!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE! Birthdays are difficult to organise on the road where you don’t have much alone time to shop or be sneaky. The day started with presents and breakfast out followed by a massage for Charlotte that I’d booked on behalf of Charlotte’s sister in England. Ironically afterwards Charlotte disappeared to the shops to shop for my birthday in a months time… To finish up the day we caught up with our Dutch friends Paul and Juliette who we used to work with before they moved to Darwin and we had dinner and drinks at the sailing club with a rather marvellous sunset and a shared slice of cheesecake with a candle for a makeshift birthday cake.
Back to life admin we took Louis to Toyota in Darwin to finally get the bits and pieces looked at. An awesome guy called Tim pinned the wind noise on tightening the door hinge and/or a few broken securing plugs on the door seal that must have happened during the paint job. He also confirmed that yes, the fuel cap is letting dust in but again no stock because they never seem to need replacing (just our luck!), so he wrote down the part number in the service report so we can get one delivered to Broome Toyota when Louis gets his first service. We caught up with Paul and Juliette again that night at the Mindil beach night market where Charlotte got some nasi campur (an Indonesian favourite of hers) which she was really happy about. Big goodbyes ensued as we don’t know when we’ll be seeing our friends next.
Our last day in Darwin was filled with more activities; a haircut for me, a pedicure for Charlotte and lunch at Speakers Corner Café in parliament house which is a lovely spot with great food and coffee. We checked out the wharf area after lunch and were delayed by something that Charlotte got really excited about… In the middle of the waterfront area there’s a closed off section for swimming (supposed to keep the crocs out) with huge inflatable waterslides, jumps and climbing equipment you can swim out to. After scaring and injuring ourselves for a while there we finally began the drive out Darwin with some food shopping, dinner in a carpark and a paltry $212 on diesel for Louis on the way (his biggest drink to date). We drove out to Berry Springs in the dark again ready for the next phase of the adventure.
P.s Charlotte is a bit older than 22 but she’s still a BABE
