The home journey begins.

it was time to say goodbye to Kakadu and begin our South bound journey.

Almost. 

We had just over an hour and a half in the car before unhitching the van at the Rangers Station and tearing down 60Km of dirt road to Gunlom Falls. This time we had no expectations of seeing running water, but did know that there will be rock pools for swimming. 

The walk was graded as steep and strenuous. Easy for us I am sure. 

Well..... after about 40 minutes of climbing rocks up the side of a mountain and my heart stopping twice whilst my calves were burning more than Satan’s backyard, we made it. And once again, it was well worth the effort. This time, we were swimming in “The Infinity Pools”, where they overlook the ginormous cavern that we just climbed, and appear to not have an edge. 

Despite the general green look of the water, it was crystal clear as always and cool and refreshing. 

After an hour of paddling and washing off the layers of expunged sweat, we dried off and got dressed, ready for the descent down the “steep and strenuous” rocks. 

Arriving back at the car sweatier than a barramundi at Cahill’s Crossing, we raced back to the van in air conditioned comfort, and had our usual lunch break. 

We were now on the road back to Mataranka. We had called in on the way up, but will now be staying at the Little Roper campground so we can enjoy a relaxing swim in the natural hot springs. There was also a performance on tonight by Nathan “Whippy” Griggs who is actually a World record holder in 3 different topics of whip cracking. And he was amazing. A super talented 26 year old country kid who specialises in making and cracking whips. The kids were mesmerised by him and felt chuffed to be able to have their photo taken with him. 

The swimming pools here in Mataranka must be seen (and swam in) to be truly appreciated. Perfectly pure clean water that has 31 million litres of water a day flowing out of the limestone into the pools and then into the riverways, free for everyone to use. 

The Stockcamp we are staying in has its own unique way of keeping everyone happy. They bake bread every morning and sell it to whoever wants a loaf. They also have a variety of snakes that are brought out for the kids. This morning it was two small children’s pythons. Dylan and Kayla couldn’t get enough of them, whilst Tyler stood back and Tracy locked herself in the van. 

This stage of our journey had now also come to an end. Tomorrow is a huge day. Driving from Mataranka to as close as possible to Alice Springs. Which turned out to be a roadside rest area approximately 940 km away. A big day in the car, but allowed us to fit in the next stages of our trip without rushing. 

Tomorrow is shopping day in Alice before heading off to Uluru. 

Crocodiles are definitely king

Our rest day today started with a short trip to the Rangers Station and Visitor information centre. We had pretty well already decided what we would be doing today, but wanted to check if there was anything else that needed to be crammed in. Cahill’s Crossing was a definite location and this was confirmed by the Ranger. 

Cahill’s Crossing is the road into Arnhem Land and is underwater for most of the day. The unique thing about it is that fisherman gather just before the high tide for their chance at a Barra, all the while risking their lives with Crocodiles also gathering to catch a feed as the fish cross the road. It was an amazing sight to witness and of course fuelled Dylan’s desire to do some fishing himself. 

As luck would have it, he did manage to catch something, but unfortunately it was only a small catfish. But it was a fish. 

The heat and humidity was stifling (despite the locals saying it is the cold season) so we didn’t stay long and gave up on all other plans for visits, to spend the afternoon at the pool instead. 

The kids met some friends they first met in Alice Springs and were entertained through to 8 o’clock, and we splashed about with a cold beer or two - this entire pool area is a licensed venue with a bar so suited us perfectly. 

Tomorrow we leave for Mataranka, but will be stopping at Gunlom falls on the way for another hike and swim. 

Sunrise with crocodiles

This morning was a super early start for anyone that is on holiday. We needed to be at Cooinda by 6:30am for our sunrise tour in Yellow River, which happened to be 40 minutes away.  

Getting on a boat in a crocodile infested river just as daylight started (but still no sign of the sun) is an experience in itself. 

We motored slowly down, spotting and talking about all the birds and wildlife, with a keen interest on the Kings of the river system. 

Seeing the sun rise over the boggy marshes was incredible too, with many different shades of orange starting to reflect off the water. 

Before we knew it, our time was up and we were back on dry land. The good part of this was that we got a full buffet breakfast at the lodge as part of the ticket price. 

As we were about to embark on a huge walk, mountain climb and swim, we did the right thing and gorged ourselves until we were about to burst. 

We waddled back to the car and headed for Jim Jim falls. This is reached by travelling 55km on a reasonably good dirt road, followed by a further 30ish km on a 4wd single lane track. This was the moment I had been waiting for. Time to get Jerry dirty. I let the tyre pressure down and went forth. It wasn’t terribly difficult but had a lot of high spots, sand, rock and shallow creeks to cross. It was fun and the kids were excited about the bumps and wet bits. 

We couldn’t believe how many people were at the end of the track in the car park. There must have been at least 50 cars. 

The track along the creeks edge was difficult and of course horribly hot. We finally got to the end and....... no waterfall. 

Many words and phrases were muttered. We later found out it had dried up about 2 weeks ago. We were so hot and sweaty at this stage that we didn’t really care. We jumped into the rock pool and cooled down for the next hour. 

This definitely wasn’t as nice as some of the others, and nowhere has been as nice as Litchfield (in my opinion), but it was cool and refreshing. 

We hiked back to the car and got ourselves all sweaty again, had lunch that was still beautifully cool thanks to some ice packs in s thermal bag, despite the 60 degree temperature of the car, then returned on the 4wd track back to civilisation. 

A long day that had been filled with heaps of adventure, saw the kids and Tracy all asleep in the car on the way back, and then an hour relaxing in the caravan park pool when we got back 

We must be due for a rest day soon. 

Crocodiles are king

Crocodiles are king up here. and looking at the size of some of them, I will never dispute that fact.
We left Litchfield early to get to an 11am crocodile jumping tour. We didn't really know what to expect, other than we were on a 1 hour cruise.... hopefully it was a return trip.

The crocodiles were absolutely everywhere, and one in particular was huge. As soon as a croc is seen and it recognises the boat, it immediately swims up and starts expecting a feed. apparently they will only do this to the boats they recognise and will not approach a fishing boat or even if one of these tour boats has a different colour on it.
The tour guide was very knowledgeable, very funny and obviously loved her job... and who wouldn't. Watching these prehistoric monsters jumping up only a metre away from our position is an awesome experience.

Unfortunately it was over way too soon, but we were all pumped that we got to see what we did.
We had lunch just up the road before heading into Jabiru. Our goal was to get to Cooinda by 2pm, but they either haven't answered or have just hung up on every attempt to call them since last night. about 15km short of Jabiru, they finally answered and advised they were full. i would have been extremely $%#! if we had gotten there to find that out (it is another 40 minutes past Jabiru). What this meant though was that our booked Yellow River tour departing tomorrow morning at 6:45am from Cooinda was now a very early start.

The kids took off to the pool whilst we set up, and then we joined them for an hour. Whilst discussing our plans for the next few days, we decided that we would leave immediately to a place called Ubirr for sunset and a look at some Aboriginal rock art.
We arrived with only about 25 minutes to spare before sunset, so the art was quickly looked at as we raced in our best hiking thongs to the vantage spot on the rock - with about 200 other people! i couldn't believe how many people were here - obviously a very popular place.
And as the sun set over the plains, we knew why everyone was here. Incredible colours and views that had to be seen to be appreciated.

Goodbye Darwin, Hello Litchfield

Our last day in the very Top End was to be semi-educational. After all, today is officially the first day back at school for the kids. 

We went to the museum where there was s very detailed description of Cyclone Tracy (not too much different from my normal experience when my Tracy is in clean up mode).... and also some very interesting displays of “Sweetheart” the crocodile and all the other local sea life. 

We then went to the wharf to the RFDS display and 3D stories of the bombing of Darwin. This was extremely interesting and informative and I am sure we all walked away from that much wiser. 

Our day has ended and we got ourselves ready for the short trip to Litchfield tomorrow. 

On arrival, we were greeted with a nice quiet park where we could pick our own site. We found a nice spot away from everyone else, that we later discovered to also be the only spot where Telstra reception could be received unless you were at a designated spot by the front office. We were also right amongst the local Cane Toads. Disgusting enormous toads that appeared after dusk but quickly took off as we tried wacking it with a stick. 

There are swimming holes and waterfalls around Litchfield everywhere. I am sure we only saw a few of them, but nonetheless they were amazing. 

We also did our first 4wd track to the Lost City which was fun. I did chicken out and stopped short of crossing a flowing river that would have most likely seeped through the bottom door panels, blaming it on only having standard road tyres

The bats at Wangi Falls were in the thousands, but thankfully also off the main area we were. They stink and are noisy and I am glad not to have seen them earlier. 

Our last day in Litchfield saw us heading back North through Batchelor to Berry Springs. This is yet another natural hot spring fed lake, with crystal clear waters and small fish that took great delight in biting any bare skin that stayed motionless for long enough. Thank the Lord I was wearing my bathers this time and saved everyone the sight of me racing up the steps with a wet fish slapping me with every running lope. 

Tomorrow we are off to Kakadu. It suddenly dawned on us that this means we only have 3 days left here in the Top End before our rapid descent to the cooler weather begins

Sigh........

A day for us.

We had read about some fish feeding opportunities at the harbour and decided that would be our entertainment for the morning. We found our way to Cullen Bay and ambled gown to the wharf where we were told the fish would be. Sure enough, there was 30-40 large Milkfish and another 10-15 Diamond backed mullet hanging around waiting for tourists like us to turn up. The local wharf cafe puts stale bread and crusts in a basket so that we can grab it and throw it in for the fish. It was an amazing experience and the kids loved hanging down precariously over the edge of the wharf with a piece of bread just touching the water waiting for the fish to come up and snatch it away. 

We then wandered around checking out the local shops and the ferry terminal, and once again happened to bump into our travel companions Simone and her boys Theo and Tallin (aka @gypsydystandwanderlust). We went back to the fish with them before finding a shady spot on the grass overlooking the beach, where we had lunch. 

Next location was to visit my cousin Paul, I don’t think I have seen him for 30+ years, yet thanks to the power of Facebook, it felt like I had caught up with him every few months. After chatting for a while, we headed into the Wave Pool complex, which cost us a measly $18 for the family. This was a huge chlorinated pool that catered for all ages and had a wave making machine that ran for 10 minutes every 10 minutes. 

Even the car park was pretty funky. Ticketless with auto number plate recognition, 1st 2 hours free and $2 for the 3rd hour. That is how to get people into town on a Saturday. 

We all went back to Paul and Victoria’s place for tea, armed with some BBQ meat and other bits, along with a reasonable dose of bourbon and beer. 

It turned into a great night and catchup with lots of laughs and chatting. 

We didn’t hang around too late, because tomorrow (Sunday) was one of my main highlights of this trip. I had booked a fishing charter with Tyler and Dylan to catch us some big ones. 

It did mean we had a horribly early start (wake up 4:50 am to be there at 5:45am), but that is what we do for a good day fishing. 

And a good day it was ... although it turned out to be relatively quick. We got our boat limit of 16 Jew fish and 24 Golden snapper within 2 hours (after a 2 hour ride out to the spot). This meant we now had another 2 hour trip back in to be on shore by 12:30 rather than the planned 3:30. 

It didn’t really matter in the end. Dylan had caught the majority of the fish and one of the biggest also. He was completely worn out and fell asleep on the way back, dreaming of all the fish he got.