On Saturday I joined an AATKings bus trip to Kakadu. 6:30am start. 27 on the 50-seater coach. But a curious mix – some were on a day trip, 7 of us on a 3-day, don’t know about the others. We saw an indigenous cultural centre (though I would like to have stayed longer to listen to the guy talking about stuff), a cruise on the creek near Cooinda. Lots of big estuarine crocodiles (not ‘saltwater’ – they can do either fresh or salt water) – keep your hands inside the boat! And some interesting rock art.
He’s at least 4m long.
But when we got to the hotel there was some confusion. “Pick up tomorrow at 8am”. But my itinerary says 6:45! One of the others phoned the office: definitely 8:00. I phoned: I’m definitely 6:45. So at least two different itineraries among the 3-day people. The logistics!
Turns out I was the only one from our original 27 doing Jim Jim Falls today. 16 people gathered from far and wide. Our guide a nice young man with a pressured time scale for the day. “Now this is a very difficult walk and we’ve got to keep a good pace. There is a lot of rock scrambling. If anyone has bad knees or ankles, i suggest you join Bob over there on his itinerary.” Repeated that a couple of times. “If anyone can’t keep up, I’ll just leave you to sit on a rock until we get back.” I finally said, well if I’ve got to, I’ll sit on a rock but I want to give it a try. To make his point about what might be required, he did a ‘parcour’ leap over the adjacent picnic table! I was a bit anxious. So we started off, me with my stick. “You might want to leave the stick behind – that will make it difficult for you when you need two hands for the rock scrambling.” Me: I’ll see how I go.
So we headed off up the track to Jim Jim Falls (c.1 km, ETA 1 hour). I was soon left almost at the back but by the time we’d reached his ‘sit rock’, he’d decided I could cope and he slowed down a bit. So we all got there in 45 minutes. Not a lot of water coming over, but we had to have a swim because we could. Too far in the cold water to risk trying to reach the falls.
It’s the burning season. A bit hazy today
The original itinerary had us going to Twin Falls but the road in there is still closed. So a long drive further south (though a shorter walk in) to Maguk Falls. Smaller but more water and very pretty. I left my togs in the bus (decided I didn’t want to get into Wet togs) and regretted it. A nicer pool I reckon.
So more driving than we’d have liked – but John would have approved of the way our driver/guide dealt with the corrugations on the 4wd tracks!
i was probably the oldest in the group(though a couple of the men probably not far behind). A bit slower than most, but I got there ok and only needed a ‘hand’ at one tricky creek crossing in the afternoon.
A good day.
travellingkathy 