Ka-ka-du-du-du, push pineapples, shake the tree. Part two.

We woke early and packed with an ease that you’d expect after five weeks on the road and multiple reorganisations. We headed for Jim Jim falls, which is only assessable by four-wheel drive. Fortunately the 50km track to the campsite was in the process of being graded, so it was a piece of piss to get there. The camp was quite nice, if not a little small. The best thing was the toilets were much less smelly than Maguk and had toilet seats unlike Gunlom, both pluses as I hadn’t had a shit in two days. It’s hot as fuck here, so we sat around waiting for it to cool down. We had our eye on a sunset walk, under the 3km limit set by Becky, so waited for the temperature to drop. Late afternoon the German/Dutch couple pulled up after a day at Jim Jim falls. We had a nice chat, before they set off for another campsite. They are quite nice, but it made us anguish over the potential for the ménage et trois fuckwits to show up, on an obviously well trodden route.   

The rest of the day was uneventful, bar a four-wheel drive looking for the sunset walk that apparently no longer exists. This park is beautiful, but is starting to look a little run down, and many of the walks in the 2015 guide are closed or no longer exist.

The next morning we set off on the short, but slow four-wheel drive track to the falls. It takes 20-30 minutes to travel to the car park, as you can only reach a top speed of 20km/hour at any one point. This was followed by a short, but very rocky walk to the falls themselves. It was a spectacular sight, even with only a small flow over the 175-metre high falls. I had a quick dip, but decided against swimming out to the ledge under the falls, as it really was too cold.

Earning myself a new nickname of no-nutz Gosden

We walked to another section, with a sandy shore, and I regretted not swimming the 100+ metres to the bottom of the falls. So I geared myself up by standing in the sun to get warm.

You only regret the things you don't do

Warmed up and mentally geared up, I started the swim out. It was very cold, and about 2/3rds of the way through I remembered I'm not a great swimmer... I didn't learn until I was 12, and Becky says it shows in the graceful way I carry myself in water. So I started to get tired, and by the time I reached the edge I was both cold and tired.

I really regret swimming to this ledge

Small...or far away?

I stood on the ledge for a bit, took some terrible photos with the waterproof camera, and chatted briefly with some other fuckwits stupid enough to also swim there. We all pretended it was well worth the effort.

Yeah, I'm a dumb twat too

I reluctantly climbed back in the water and swam back, contemplating whether it would be worse to be eaten by a croc, drown or get hypothermia.

Totally worth it

As we walked back to the car, I was struggling, as my feet were still numb from the water. It was a lovely place and well worth a visit, but the water was fucking cold (probably around 18-20 degrees). After visiting three waterfalls over the last week, I think we can now officially say we are all waterfall'd out!

Becky found herself practicing parkour over the rocks

Goodbye Jim Jim

We went back and reorganised the car again, because why not. I also discovered that some sort of rat had chewed through the windscreen washer tubing to get to the water. The little bugger/s had not only chewed one spot, but all along the bonnet, right down to the connection point by the front reservoir. For good measure, the back windscreen wiper tubing was also chewed in multiple places.  

Exhibit one, m'lud.

That night the campsite filled to well over capacity, as it was Saturday night of a long weekend for NT. Our evening entertainment was provided courtesy of a family with three kids and a dispute over a fire pit. A young couple that’d rocked up after them had, in the family’s absence, proceeded to start a fire in the pit using the wood the family had collected. The daughter had a full on meltdown at the loss of her fire pit and I felt a little sorry for her. After her fifth meltdown, this time due to her toasted sandwich not being perfect, I realised she was just a brat (cue joke about her being an odd 28 year old).  It was funny watching the bloke who nabbed their pit spend the rest of the evening being overly nice and trying to compensate for his dick move earlier. Packed sites do have some advantages. Although very full, it was still quieter than our experience with the Dutch and my freezing swim had left me tired enough to sleep through anything anyway.

The next morning we packed up and headed for the bright lights of Jabiru. After finding that Bubba walk was closed, (how can a 2015 visitor guide be so out of date?), we did the Anbangbang Billabong walk, walking distance less than 3km! It was very nice and filled with bird life. Best of all it was neither a waterfall nor a fucking plunge pool.

A nice grass covered walk.

We recouped after the gruelling stroll around the pond with our staple lunch snack; some salted peanuts and a cold cola, before setting off again on the Nawurlandja lookout walk, a 250m steep climb to the top. It was well worth it, as we got a lovely view of Nourlangie rock, and over Kakadu in general. Plus it was neither a waterfall nor a fucking plunge pool.

No waterfall in sight

Plunge this!

We got to Jabiru, and set up camp in a private campground with bar and pool. In a lovely twist of fate we ended up next to the Dutch/German couple. They were just off to watch the sunset at Ubirr. We decided it would be nicer to spend our time sitting around a shitty pool filled with kids, trying to catch up on this stupid blog. Three tinnies of gold later (that's about 15 minutes) I was still very behind writing this thing. Despite the crowed nature of this private ground, we liked our camp spot, mainly due to it being near a tap that attracted loads of different birds, including a cockatoo and a kite. Every time a cool bird landed my nice camera was out of reach, and any movement would scare them off. However Becky manage to catch a nice shoot of the Cockatoo with her phone.

iPhone 1 - Nikon 0

The Dutch/German couple came back from the Ubirr sunset and said it was very nice, but packed out with people. We decided a sunset surrounded by loads of people is not a nice sunset, so we’ll give that a miss. Later that evening they joined us around our table, and we spent the evening doing a lovely bit of socialising and having a delightful chat. They are a very nice couple and easy to chat with. It was the first time on this trip that we have really talked with anyone else, besides each other…and we ran out of topics to talk about in Cairns. Perhaps that is why we spend so much time reorganising the car. We talked until after 11pm, the latest I have been awake since our first night out of Brisbane. What social folks we are…