sleeping under the stars and swimming in waterfalls

So its been a week since the last post, so I thought I should probs write about what I’ve been doing.

I left Alice springs last tuesday, heading north to Darwin. I was on a tour with the company called Groovy Grape. We left Alice at lunchtime, and joined the Stuart highway (incidentally, its the only road we were on for the whole trip to Darwin! – no navigation required!) we drove 400km to the Devils marbles, where we arrived just before sunset.

devils marbles

We managed to get a bit of rock climbing and jumping photos in before watching the sunset.

jumping at devils marbles

We camped for the night in Warhope, which is the tiniest little roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. We had a bbq for dinner, and the rest of the evening was spent in the pub, playing pool.

I slept really well, but morning came far too quickly with the 6:30 wake up, and it was sooo cold when I got out of my swag! After a quick breakfast we were back on the Stuart highway, with a stop for Elliot for lunch, but apart from that, the  700km drive up to Mataranka hot springs was pretty uneventful, and I think all of us slept for a fair bit of it! On the way we stopped at the Daly Waters pub, which is a really random pub in the middle of nowehere, but its made its name by people leaving clothes/shoes/flags/money/other stuff which they display on the walls.

We arrived at the hot springs at about 4ish. The first pool we went to was concrete, so didn’t look that much like a hot spring, but there were heaps of massive spiders! The water was a nice 32°C, so wasn’t so fun to get out! We then went for a bit of an explore, and found a crocodile (only a freshie – so no need to worry) sitting near the side of the river.

freshie!

We could also go swimming in this river (not that near the croc, and they don’t attack anything bigger than fish anyway!) so obviously, I had to jump in and have a swim. The river was a lot colder than the hot springs, but there was a warm channel where the hot spring water met the river water.

swimming in the river

We then headed back to the minibus to head to another of the hotspring pools. This was more of a river, and was much less concrete. We swam downstream, and saw a kingfisher along with even more spiders. There were also heaps of bugs as we swum down the river, and I’m pretty certain I ate one! Swimming back against the current wasn’t so fun, as we didn’t realise quite how strong it was!

It was then back tot he campground, and curry and rice for dinner, followed by an early night!

We woke up before sunrise to have another swim in the hotsprings, which felt so much warmer in the cold of the morning! However, the run back to the minibus to get changed wasn’t so fun!

the hot springs at sunrise

We then drove for 45 minutes to the Cutta cutta caves, which were formed a very long time ago. Cutta means stars, and cutta cutta means lots of stars. The stalagtites in the caves are formed of calcite, which sparkles in the light, giving the illusion of stars.

We then drove for a few hours to get to Edith falls, where we had hambugers for lunch, followed by a swim at the waterfall, where we also climbed up the waterfall and explored the lakes and other smaller waterfalls at the top of the big one.

edith falls

There was also a cave that we could swim though, which was really cool. We left Edith at about 3 to continue our journey to Darwin. We stopped off in Adelaide river for a quick drink in the pub, which had the buffalo from crocodile dundee in it. We eventually arrived in Darwin at about 6:30, where I had a quick shower, dinner and then an early night.

I spent friday in Darwin, where I had a nice lie in, which was slightly hampered by the icelandic air con in the room! I then did some tour and flight booking, and sat around the pool for lunch.

I spent the afternoon walking around Darwin, which is another city with not that much to look at. It also doesn’t have beaches you can swim in, due to the crocodiles, so I went back to the pool for a swim and a relax. I spent the evening chilling around the pool with the girls in my room, and packed for my kakadu trip.

We all had to wake up early in my room, as all of us were on different tours. I had a highly healthy milkshake and orange for breakfast before getting on the bus to kakadu. Out tour guide’s name was Dan, and he looked like Russel brand after a shower and a haircut. First we drove to adelaide river, where we had a jumping crocs cruise, where they get the crocodiles to jump out of the water to get a bit of meat hanging from a pole.

jump crocodile - jump!

We saw some really big crocodiles, which look really impressive when they jump out of the water. We also got to hold a snake, and look at some other snakes. (they also gave us free breakfast before we got in the boat, which was a nice touch)

python!

After getting off the boat, we headed to a roadhouse to stock up on drink for the trip, and an icecream before driving to the national park. The road we drove down was pretty bumpy, but wasn’t too bad as we were in a massive 4×4 minibus. We stopped for lunch on the side of a river, and spent lunch getting to know each other, and watch people drive though the river. We stopped off to look at some rather gigantic termite mounds, which were rather big.

termite mound

It was then back on the bus, to collect  wood for the fire, and then we headed to the campground to put up the mozzie tents and drop the trailer off. We then stopped at the resorts pool for a quick swim to cool down and wash off the dust from the wood.

We then headed further into the park to see some aboriginal rock art, and we were told some stories that were used to educate the aboriginal people in how to behave, and the consequences of what would happen if they didn’t do what they were told, such as being beaten to death by a giant yam (ie a sweet potato, if girls went out into the bush on their own)

On the way back to the campground we stopped at a billabong that was used as a set in crocodile dundee (yet another reference!) and watched the sunset there.

i can't remember its name - but a billabong

We then headed back to the campground and cooked a dinner for kangaroo and buffalo sausages with vegies and mash on the fire. We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the fire, and attempting to play the didgeridoo, which is a lot more difficult than it looks, mostly cos it sounds awful and we all kept laughing! We also did a bit of stargazing, and found the emu that hides in the milky way.

We were woken up at about 5:30 to the sound of Dan making brekkie. We had toast that was cooked on the fire and cereal. We then headed down a really bumpy track to Twin falls, where we got a boat to the beach, where we then had to climb over a few rocks to reach the waterfall. Sadly, we couldn’t have a swim as there were crocodiles in the water. We stayed there for a while, and then got back on the boat and back in the van to take us to Jim Jim falls, which wasn’t actually running.

twin falls

The walk to Jim Jim falls was only 1km, but took quite a while as it involved jumping form rock to rock, and a bit of scrambling over rocks. We finally reached the beach and jumped in the really cold water, which was soo nice! We then swum round to the plunge pool, which was massive! It was about 100m long and the same wide. Obviously, we swum all the way to the base of the waterfall to check out the rock on the other side, before doing the long swim back again. I was lazy and swam back on backstroke, which was sooo much easier than the head-up frontcrawl I did on the way out!

We then scrambled back over the  rocks and got back to the bus for lunch. After lunch we went back to the pool to chill out for a few ours in the sun, before heading back to the campground and watching the sunset over the billabong next to our campground, complete with beer in hand!

Dinner was jacket spuds cooked in the fire, with lamb chops and vegies, we spent the rest of the evening sitting around before going to bed pretty early.

We got a bit of a lie in on the third morning – only to be woken up by the crows making heaps of noise, and the kites stealing the leftover bones from the plates we had left out from last nights dinner.

We took our time over breakfast and then headed to Barramundi gorge, which was amazing. The water was soo clear, and was really nice to swim in the sun. I borrowed Dan’s goggles, and we spent ages swimming though 3 different underwater caves. We then headed to the lower part of the gorge for some more swimming. It was then lunchtime, where we surveyed the damage of the previous nights mosquito biting, I think I had over 50 bites in total!

barramundi gorge

It was then time to head back to Darwin, where we got back to the city at about 6:30. I showered, managing to get most of the mud from the previous few days off my feet – the only problem was that my towel was so dirty, I didn’t really get that clean! I had a quick dinner before packing all my stuff and falling into bed at about 9:30.

Today was an insanely early start, with my alarm going off at 3:15, as I had to be at the airport for 4. I slept through most of the 3 hour flight to cairns. I checked into my hostel, and have spent most of the day chilling out, and booking my travels down the east coast.