Kakadu Day Two!!! A day of waterfalls and an evening of rain!

After an early wake up call and breakfast round the campfire we set off to Twin Falls.  These waterfalls whilst pretty do not have a lot of water in them as it is the end of the dry season at the moment in Northern Territory.  They are inaccessible in the wet season by road and they are best seen from the air - something we are planning on doing at some point.

We embarked on a very bumpy 4 wheel drive off road track to get to Twin Falls - I was glad at this point we had taken a tour and not self driven as this would have been quite scary to drive....  After a very hot walk up to the top of the falls we had a swim in the pool. There were some really great views on the walk up.   This area was "safe" as there are no salt water crocs there (normally) as it is difficult for them to reach in the dry season.  At the end of the wet season they check all these water holes to ensure there are no salties left...  However there is always the chance they move in again and so nowhere in Kakadu is recommended for swimming with the exception of public swimming pools...

Then we walked back down to the bottom where we got on a boat to head towards the bottom of the falls. On the boat we passed some salt water croc traps which they use in a number of areas to get remove any salties which stray into the area.  A shortish walk/ scramble and we made it to the bottom of the falls.

 

We then set off down another 4WD track to go to the might Jim Jim falls (so called because there are lots of Jim Jim trees there!) After a 1km walk scrambling over rocks we arrived at the plunge pool of the falls - at this time of year there is not much water coming over the falls. We then went for a refreshing swim in the plunge pools beneath the falls.  To get to this plunge pool we had to swim through 2 other pools and scramble through lots of rocks between them - hence why there are no photos of them up close...  Whilst this scrambling and swimming was fun, it did mean lots of bruises and cuts on my legs!!!!

 

     

 

Then we headed off to make camp for the night. Whilst we were cooking tea it rained, not a little bit of rain, but proper monsoon rain and our tent did not have a waterproof cover so we ended up sleeping in the bus for the night - not very comfy. We tried to brave it out in the tent but when we got wet through our swags and our tent resembled a paddling pool we gave up and hid it in the bus along with the mossies....  The last time it rained this early in September was about 30 years ago - just our luck...