TripRoundUnder

It was time to visit arguably Australia’s most famous National Park, Kakadu!

Heading further North, we started to notice dry scrub turning into lush bushland and pockets of wetlands started to appear. In saying that, the heat outside continued to be scorching and we were looking forward to the waterfalls and waterholes ahead!

Our first stop, Maguk campground, allowed the best of both worlds, with a shady campground and a hike to Barramundi Falls and it’s well known swimming hole.

The walk out to the falls took about 30 minutes, but thankfully most of it was shaded and it was beautiful to walk through the rainforest. In saying that, it was slightly unnerving to see the signs warning of salt water crocodiles in the billabongs leading up to the falls, but we had been assured that they weren’t in the waterhole…

Arriving at the entrance to the falls, they definitely lived up to their reputation! Such an awesome, although slightly nervy place to go for a much needed swim.

Arriving back at camp, we tried our hardest to cool down and make dinner, but noises in the bush made us a little jumpy! We knew we were in wild pig, crocodile and dingo country, so tried our best to relax and get a good night sleep in spite of a stressy Steve!

We had heard about a secret path leading to the top of the falls, so we went off the beaten track exploring! Skirting some rock faces and overgrown tracks, we made it to the top and boy were we glad we made the extra effort! We were looking out over a series of little swimming pools and spent an amazing hour or so swimming through the maze and cooling off.

Moving on from Maguk, we headed further into the park to Cooinda, one of the largest resorts in Kakadu. The heat and humidity had started to take its toll and we decided to take a break, have a beer and sit under the shade. In a familiar turn of events, we also saw a middle aged couple we had met at Edith Falls sitting at a table nearby and working up our courage, we went over and said hello. We must have looked quite disheveled, because they offered to buy us some ice cream and with one of our mottos being, ‘never say no to free food’, we accepted. They turned out to be lovely people and you’ll definitely read about them in our future adventures!

We now had the challenge of deciding on a place to camp for the night and settled on a smaller camp at a nearby billabong which we almost had to ourselves! Being mindful of crocs, Steve even went and had a fish for his elusive barramundi. But, in classic fashion, more fishing gear was donated to the river snags than fish were caught.

We spent a beautiful evening around the billabong, but we did notice some dark clouds rolling in on the horizon and even a little lightning. We quickly packed up the fishing and headed back to camp.

Luckily we did as within 30 minutes, the heavens opened up and we experienced our first tropical storm. We even had to cook our food indoors for the first time in a while, listening to the rain hammering down around us and lightning illuminating the camp. Pretty scary in some ways! Steve was even a little worried that crocs might decide to wander out from their billabong and he was a little nervous when stepping outside! We estimate that 100ml of rain fell in around 2-3 hours, pretty crazy!

The next day brought beautiful blue skies and we decided to head back to Cooinda and check out the Aboriginal Cultural Centre there. We spent more than an hour wandering around the exhibits and found it really interesting to learn about how the local people had lived and continue to live in such a diverse and changing landscape.

We then headed to the northern edge of the park to Ubirr, home of some of the largest and best maintained Aboriginal Rock art in the country. We wouldn’t normally be super interested in this kind of thing, but it was an amazing experience to see such old pieces of art so clearly on the wall! There was also a lookout at the edge of the area looking over a classic Kakadu wetland and plains scene. Even though there would have been 20-30 people sitting around, it felt wrong to make noise and everyone was silent taking in the view. Another storm was rolling in and you could even see the lightning strikes in the distance, a pretty special experience all up!

It was now time to leave the park and the daily fun experience of figuring out where we were going to sleep! We decided to head towards Darwin and find somewhere on the way. In hindsight, not the greatest decision as it was going dark and there weren’t many good options around! Our first attempt was a car park by the river, but security cameras and warning signs put a stop to that! The next option was a truck stop on the side of the road and this seemed okay from the outside, but when you’re by yourselves in the middle of nowhere and every noise sounds like a dingo or crazy person sneaking up on you, things feel a little different! So, after quickly making dinner we decided to move on to a more established camp and found it in a little gravel pit on the side of the road with a few other travellers. We felt a lot safer and managed to get some sleep, before a truckie felt it would be funny to blast his air horn at 4am the next morning!

Anyway, we were now heading into Darwin and in due course, Litchfield National Park. Subscribe for our continued adventures!