Tag Archives: swimming

Kakadu and Litchfield without the camping

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Did some serious kilometres with this one.

Had some friends from Queensland up, due to space in the car restrictions, we stayed in Jabiru for the night. We drove from Darwin to Maguk for a swim. We went to Ubirr for sunset, then to Jabiru to watch the mighty Kangaroos comeback against the evil Bombers. The next morning we went down to Bukbuluk, and spent most of the day in Gunlom. Afterwards we went to Ikoymarrwa, then onwards home. Stopped at Emerald Springs for dinner, it’s a pretty good roadhouse.

If you’re familiar with geography of Kakadu, you will see that we added about 300km needlessly by going back and forth, mostly because we wanted to see Ubirr at sunset, and stay in Jabiru. Next time I will stop at Ubirr on the way and stay at Cooinda. Much more sensible!

A few days later we went to Litchfield. Saw the usual spots – Florence, Wangi, Buley Rockpools in the termite mounds. But we spent most of the time in Tjaynera which was empty the majority of the time. Nothing better than an empty waterhole!

Went back to Mindle markets on that Thursday, there were some dolphins playing in the water at sunset entertaining the crowd. Pretty hard to photograph, but I did my best!

 


Claire and I in Maguk


Claire at Ubir


The four of us at Gunlom


Dolphins playing in the water

 

 

Kakadu – Ubirr, Maguk, Ikoymarrwa

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Claire and I arrived in Mardugal on Saturday and set up camp. Love that campsite, and we found wood easily. We went to Ubirr for the sunset, which is probably our favourite place in the territory. We then headed back for dinner and a few cold ones. There were a few fires on the drive back.

We spent Sunday in Maguk. We noticed that the midgees had eaten us alive, I think this is a common thing in June at any campground.

Maguk was great, there were quite a few bogans with eskies around, which was a shame, but they mostly kept to the top of the waterfall – although the signs indicated that they weren’t allowed there.

On the way home on Monday we stopped by Ikoymarrwa, it wasn’t marked on any maps, and this was the first time we had been there. It took a bit of finding… and the water was freezing!! Beautiful spot though.


Us at Ubirr

Us driving there, I love this snap

Maguk

Paradise Valley 2014

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Paradise Valley again this year, the last one that the Gell’s will own. We got our canoeing trip it, it was freezing, I have become accustomed to the NT weather faster than I want to admit.

There isn’t much to say about it, it is always great fun.

Those canoe trips always take it out of me!

 

 

Kakadu and Litchfield – in the wet

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A lot of people say that Kakadu is great in the wet season, as long as you know where to go. We had heard that Motorcar falls was a good walk and a great spot to swim. I met the rest of the gang at the Cooinda on the Saturday and we headed down to Motorcar falls. The walk is amazing, it is was really great to see Kakadu like that. Can you say green? The rain was on and off but it was so warm that you didn’t mind. It was the greenest place I had ever seen.

We didn’t camp, partly due to the random storms that hit during the wet, partly due to us taking a lot of randoms in cars. Paid accommodation was just easier.

The walk brought us to the swimming home. It was a “okay to swim but be careful of crocs” type of swimming hole, but that combined with the insane currents from all the water made us all very cautious. It was a great spot. The walk back was worse… no cool refreshing swim on the end of that! We headed over to a house we rented in Litchfield at a caravan park, for the night, before going to Florence Falls the next day. I had been to Florence falls a few times but it was good to see it with the water belting over. It was crowded, even though it was a Monday, it always is. We tried to head over to Wangi after that but a storm came over and suddenly it was thundering down, so we headed home.


It was very green on the Motorcar walks

The waterfall

The skies can really open up at this time of year

Katherine Birthday Trip

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Claire surprised me with a trip to Katherine staying at the new Cicada Lodge (or as she pronounces it, kick-arda). It was in January so we couldn’t swim anywhere there, but we took a boat trip down and got to see some of the Gorge itself.

I’m hardly used to staying in fancy resorts instead of a tent, but I really liked the place, and the food was really good. Here I am on the balcony… note actually the Melbourne is mine 😉

On the way back home we thought we stop at Edith. It was open, the second pool was available to swim in, and no one was there! It is usually a really popular spot, given it was open for swimming on a weekend, I was amazed that we were the only ones there.