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

It was an easy drive to the start of Kakadu NP. Tarmac really is a great invention.

The penultimate mainland Australian World Heritage site

We spent our first night at Gunlom falls and this required driving ~25km on unsealed and heavily corrugated roads, this made me start to miss tarmac again. The site looked quite nice, although very pricy at $15 per person. The toilet block was a little shabby, and worse still, they seemed to have bought the prop toilets from prisoner cellblock H after it was cancelled.

Watch out for screws, while I hide this smack up my arse

We set up quickly and walked to a plunge pool nearby. It was divine, so the price must be all loction, location, location. We went for an afternoon dip, and decided that maybe Kakadu won’t be so shit after all and there might be a reason it's a World Heritage site… although Riversleigh fossil site had the same status and that was shit, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

These areas are under a crocodile management scheme, meaning any crocodiles that come into the area are removed. This is supposed to make it safe to swim, however you still do so at your own risk. For the first time in my life I actually wanted children swimming near me.

What the fuck was that?

After dinner my stomach decided I had no choice but to try the prison toilets. Sitting on my toilet-paper lined seat I realised that, other than the clichéd fear of sexual assault, it is shitting on this type of toilet that I really fear about prison.

The next morning we headed for the top of the waterfall. It is a kilometre walk up some rocky paths. Becky was still a little shaken after Nitmiluk, but the pools at the top sounded too good to miss and the distance was under her now 3km max limit. The hike up wasn’t that bad, and the views over southern Kakadu were pretty spectacular. By the time we reached the pools there were already several people there, but it didn’t matter, as the pools were fantastic. Even the ginger couple with his-n-her dreads didn’t bother me.

Morning dip

We spent some time playing in the pools and watching the sun break over the top of the falls.

Cleaning the bald spot

As the sun hit a great spot for a photo of Becky, with Kakadu stretching out behind her, a really ugly man planted himself in our shot. I tried to get a shot of her, with him cut out, but the shot didn’t come out that well. I should have just asked him to move, but my balls are not as big as Becky’s, so I didn’t.

Oddly framed to avoid the uggo

It was worse for the next lady who tried for the shot. He sat down only a few metres away and started picking his feet. It’s like he knew how ugly he was and was using this power to annoy people… after that I found myself kind of liking him.

We left Gunlom for Maguk, which is quite a similar to Gunlom, but has a much cheaper campsite. It wasn’t far, so didn’t take long. We did the mandatory circling of the whole site twice, before picking a large, secluded site at the very end. I think a huge termite mound near our site swung it.

Not feeling so big now

After we unpacked and set up, we got on with our new hobby of sorting through our shit. Every spare moment we have is spent sorting and reorganising the car, it’s like an addiction. As we were pottering away, the German couple from Butterfly Springs in Limmen NP took the spot next to us. We were gob smacked, I mean the whole site was empty and they chose to be next to us again. I’m getting a teardrop eye tattoo done in Darwin, and maybe a spider’s web on my neck.

A little while later, the German bloke came over to talk with us. Turns out he was Dutch and his partner was German. He was also a ginger. He was actually not that bad to talk to, although there were some glimpses that he was anti-immigration, ‘cos they get a free ride in Holland and two passports and don’t pay their taxes. He also mentioned that he didn’t like crowded places and they seek out solitude on their journey. THEN WHY HAVE YOU PARKED NEXT TO US ON TWO OCCASSIONS? He did give us a few tips for getting to the top of the Maguk waterfall. 

The next day we got up early and on her way back from her morning movement, Becky saw the now familiar Dutch ménage et trois vehicle in one of the sites. We had a tense 10 minutes, before seeing that they had left, but it drove home how ultra vigilant we'd have to be over the next few days. After breakfast we headed for the waterfall and plunge pool. It was a short drive and the car park was reasonably empty, bar a few tour buses. It was a short, rocky walk to the bottom waterfall, and we had to cross over the creek about mid-way through. As we waded across, a tour group passed us on the way out and the tour guide mentioned there was a route that didn't require getting your feet wet. I quipped that I had flip-flops/thongs on, ‘cos I’m a bad muthafucka, so who gives a shit. He mentioned the risk of crocodiles, to which I replied "how's a five metre killer going to hide in 10cm of crystal clear water, you fucktard"... I didn't really, I just nodded and went "ohh".

You're welcome to swim, but don't blame us if you end up dead

We were alone at the first pool and took a few obligatory photos, but neither of us dared swim in the much deeper water. It was too cold and the sun wasn’t on it, and it was too early, and I hadn’t brought the right swimming trunks, and I really needed to do some stretches first.

"I'll just sit here looking pretty"

This counts as getting in the water

We decided to walk to the top of the falls, and walked back to the creek crossing. Halfway there we spotted the path on the other side of the creek. As it was shallow and clear enough to see it was croc free we decided to take a shortcut across and removed our footwear. Close to the other bank Becky had tired of carrying her shoes and tried to throw her crocs (yep, she was rocking crocs) to the bank. Now, I’m not a fan of streotypes… that’s a lie as they can be quite funny and in this case Becky’s second throw was of that of a girl. We spent the next 5 minutes trying to rescue Becky’s croc from the croc-infested creek.

The walk to the top was very short, and easy in thongs. The pools at the top were even better than Gunlom, it would have been perfect if I’d have bought an esky up with some cold ones in it.

This is more like it

We spent several hours at the swimming hole, watching one small tour group leave, before another small group arrived. It was great; we even swam to a waterfall at the back of the plunge pools and I had a little climb over the rocks like an excited teenager.

Lovely spot!

As I was climbing back to the top of the waterfall, Becky called out that an older lady needed rescuing. A mature woman had jumped into a deep water hole, and couldn’t scramble up the sides to get out. There was no need to don my Captain Hindsight outfit this time, as several people had already told her what she’d done wrong… She’d jumped into a deep waterhole she couldn’t get out of. I climbed down, and with the help of a skinner, weaker man, tried to pull her out. She was on the plump side, and she flapped and panicked as we pulled her up. The skinny bloke was no help at all, more of a hindrance really and I couldn’t get the necessary purchase to pull her all the way out. To get her over the last bit I needed to grab her by the shorts, but I didn’t want to get that friendly. In the end her husband came over and grabbed her by the crotch to properly beach her; it was quite a kerfuffle and she was very embarrassed but grateful. Becky said it was hilarious to watch…She should have taken a photo. I took a rest in the pool after, because it’s very hard being the hero all the time.

Rest up brave hero, as the woman you saved relaxes behind you

We went back to camp shortly after for lunch. Fully fed, we went for a closer look at the termite mounds, and while walking back Becky spotted the tail of a snake slithering away. She shit herself and ran screaming. I went looking for it but Becky barked at me like a toddler to stay away from the dangerous snakes, and unlike a toddler I did what I was told and sulked back to camp having not seen the little blighter. I spent the rest of the day in a huff. I wanted to see the snake, it's not fair!

Tomorrow Jim Jim Falls!

It’s important to learn from your mistakes…

We drove out of Elsey NP, stopping to check out a swimming spot recommended by the neighbours that replaced Mr Yellow Toenail. It was nowhere near as good as the one made by Family Yellow Toenail, and definitely didn’t look crocodile free enough to warrant a swim. 

Nice suggestion, replacement Yellow Toenail

We carried on into Mataranka, and it was heaving, with caravans and camper trailers everywhere. As we drove past the park, we got a glimpse of whipcracking champion, Nathan Griggs cracking whips. He was cracking two whips, one in each hand, and both were on fire. It’s as if just cracking a whip ain’t enough these days, but you need to douse them in fuel and duel-wield to excite a crowd. However, it was not impressive enough to make us stop.

We got to Katherine mid-morning and started on our huge task list that had accrued since we left the bright lights of Normanton. As it was Sunday most things were closed, including the bottle shop, but we got our shopping, and spent some time in the tourist information centre buying our Kakadu permits and getting information on the local area. It seems that we have hit a very touristy and expensive area, and this has certainly lowered our expectations. We have decided to spend a few nights in Nitmiluk Gorge National Park, before heading to Kakadu.

We then spent over an hour freezing in the over air-conditioned McDonalds using their free wifi to post a few blogs and have something from their gourmet menu. Eating here was something I later regretted during my McSquirts. Oh how I suffer for my art.

As we were driving into Nitmiluk, we spotted the Dutch trio driving in the opposite direction. After a brief and harrowing flashback, we recouped and decided we’d have to be careful over the next week, as we must only be a few days behind them. We arrived at Nitmiluk around 4pm and set the tent up on the hard, rocky ground. Getting the pegs in and moving the tent several times caused a few meltdowns, but we got there in the end. It was a nice place, if not a little expensive ($37 per night for an unpowered site) and even had a pool. Luckily it wasn’t too packed, and we tucked into our pot noodles and went to bed.

There was some nice birdlife around the site, including quite a few bowerbirds. I was worried that my cock-blocking reputation might have reached them, but they didn’t seem too bothered by me.

She's gonna love this!

Becky had circled a lovely walk for us. This one was nearer 9km, and although waaay over our limit, we felt we needed to see some of the gorge, otherwise we’ve just wasted $73 for two nights camping. We set off just after 10am, past another huge colony of little red flying foxes, towards the top of the gorge.

Becky has started writing her blog entry about these fellas 

By the time we’d reached the first look out, we were already tiring of the whole thing.

This it?

But we kept on, and on and on and on and on. We’d walked a little over 4km by the time we reached Pat’s lookout, and it was a very nice lookout. We sat down, drank some water and I said “we’re only 600m from the next lookout, and it says you can get a good look at the second part of the gorge”, which I now know to look eerily similar to the first part of the gorge.

Boodjamulla was better.

Becky reluctantly agreed that we should try to see as much as possible, and we headed off to the next spot. What we didn’t check was how hard going it was, and it was rough. After 600m of rock scrambling we finally made it, and Becky was in full moan mode. She’d had enough of the walk, and the rock scramble to a lookout not that dissimilar to the last had pushed her over the edge.

Wow, the second gorge looks so different

While we were there, a chap at the spot suggested that doing a longer loop, rather than following the path back, would be easier. He made a reasoned point that the route away from the gorge edge should be less of a scramble and therefore quicker. This made sense, so we decided we’d do the same route, just 10 minutes behind him and his family. After 500m of rougher, harder rock scrambling we realised that not only was this path longer, it was also a lot tougher. By the time we reached camp we’d walked for over 4 hours and covered approximately 12km. Becky has currently sworn off any walk over 3km… but we never really learn.

The rest of the day was a struggle to rehydrate and cool down. I even took a dip in the campsite pool. The wildlife around campsites is good enough, so fuck the whole hiking thing.

Walked all of 1metre from my camp for this Blue-faced honeyeater

We had a lovely bolognaise for dinner and went to bed utterly shattered. I feel it is worth mentioning a French family camped near by with between 4-7 kids. I didn’t get the exact number of kids due to the father getting a little creeped out by me trying to do a head count of his kids. Although they were quite noisy, we didn’t get annoyed once. I think we might have reached peak frustration with people after the Dutch incident and passing them on the way in has reminded us of how bad it can get. Or we were just too tired to care. Besides, large French families remind me of my friend, Thomas, and that’s not a bad thing. His kids are nicer and better behaved though.

The next morning we headed back to Katherine, to shop for the next seven days in Kakadu and post another blog. I have been scheduling them a few days apart, so they can appear when we are out of range for a while. Despite the huge burden this has become, I think I’m getting the hang of it. Shame it’s not 10 years ago when blogging was a thing.

We also booked our next car service at Kmart automotive Darwin. The second battery seems to be losing charge quicker, meaning the fridge keeps powering off. Could it be that Kmart automotive Cairns wasn’t trying to rip us off? This made us re-think the whole, ignore the advise of mechanical experts thing and booked the rear brakes and an engine degrease, to try and find the source of an oil leak that doesn’t seem to affect the oil levels. It looks like Darwin is going to be very expensive.

Next stop Kakadu.

Tepid Spring Park

Our German neighbours ended up not being so bad, so we were able to get about our business of doing fuck all. There was some nice wildlife around the watering hole, such as Mertens Water Monitor and the Azure Kingfisher, plus a shit load of Sulpher Crested Cockatoos.

What sort of stupid name is Merten?

We have taken a lot of wildlife photos, and if I get a chance I’ll post more of them on our Flickr site. We enjoyed our last day at Limmen, and decided the next day that we’d head for the edge of the park.

Tom's photography gets 10/10 for effort

We smashed the packing, and powered out of the site leaving the Germans still packing up…fucking amateurs. We quickly reached the campsite, but decided that the day was still young, the site was not that great and I had plenty of drive left in me. We highlighted a NP just outside of Mataranka, called Elsey NP. It had rave reviews and some hot springs. It was a fair old distance, and the drive I thought I had left in me quickly diminished; to be honest the 1200km of corrugated, rough roads were starting to get to me. However, we dug in, and made it to the lovely bitumen of the Stuart Highway.

It was getting late when we pulled into Elsey, and like the Dutch toddler, I was tired and very whiney. The site was odd, nicely laid out with good areas, but bollards everywhere that stopped you getting too close to the sites and sprinklers that were active everyday between 1-3pm. This is a real pain for our camping set up, but we managed to find a spot reasonably close to the car. However, we would have to make sure everything was away and out of sprinkler distance tomorrow afternoon. I was not a happy bunny. A few beers did little to improve my mood and I went to bed grumpy.

One thing we never do is learn anything from our mistakes. We decided that, despite realising that 7km was our limit for walks, to set off on an 8km walk to a waterfall, the name of which I don’t care to look up. As we were preparing for our walk, our neighbour came over for a chat. Becky noticed he had very yellow toenails. He showed us a great tip for stopping the sprinklers, by ramming a twig in the flapping system, and mentioned the location of a bowerbird nest. We were a little sceptical of his method, but thanked him anyway. A few moments later Mr Yellow Toenail’s wife came over. Her toenails were not discoloured. She mentioned a small, croc-free swimming hole (literally a hole 2m by 2m) in the creek that was perfect for an afternoon dip. We thanked her, and set off on our 8km walk. The walk to the waterfall was sandy, which made walking hard, particularly in my shitty trainers. We got to the waterfall, and it is exactly as you’d expect…a total waste of time.

Not worth the 8km round trip

Becky tried to convince me that it was good to stretch our legs after all the driving, but I was having none of it.

Even Becky's hilarious "I'm gonna jump" joke did little to lighten the mood

The walk back was worse, as the return route was the same track we’d already walked. Becky joked near the end about another waterfall near the campsite being better, but I had totally run out of fucks to give and didn’t even stop to look.

And only 500m from the campsite

When we got back to the site, Mr Yellow Toenail’s trick was working wonders and our tent and gear were dry and the sprinkler was shooting its jet of water into the bush! We decided to get on with sorting out our over packed car, a major task of our trip, but found doing this was quite sweaty in the heat and went for a dip in Mr Yellow Toenail’s wife’s suggested spot. It was great! A second great tip from Mr Yellow Toenail and his wife. We also looked at the bowerbird’s nest, and it was lovely… We love Mr Yellow Toenail and his wife.

Tom was so scared of crocodiles, he farted fish and sand!

Brave Becky didn't give a fuck

After the lovely and refreshing dip, we decided to visit the famous hot springs. It seems strange to have a hot springs that people want to visit in an area where the daytime winter temperature is in the low 30’s, but we were interested. It was an odd set up for a NP, as you first had to walk through a private campground, and, like Ikea, they directed you through their bar area, so you could see all the good times to be had. They were advertising the visit of whipcracking champion, Nathan Griggs on Sunday… I didn’t even know there was a championship in whipcracking, or that whipcracking was a thing.

Turns out Tina was wrong, we did need another hero

We wandered down to the hot springs to find a concreted pool area, filled with people of all ages enjoying the spring. It was horrendous. It just looked like a shitty pool, but without chlorine and other cleaning agents counteracting the skin and faecal matter that must be filling the water. I dipped in my toe to find the water temperature lukewarm, so not really a hot springs, more a tepid springs… It made us even more grateful to Mr Yellow Toenail’s wife for her top tip.

The perfect temperature for picking up infections and gastroenteritis

For dinner, Becky cooked up a lovely rice dish and we went to bed happy. Elsey NP had turned out to be all right, excluding the tepid spring. We packed up without fuss in the morning, and whilst walking to the shower I saw Mr Bowerbird doing a dance with some offering in his mouth. As I walked closer to take a look I scared the female away. The male did not look impressed…I just cock-blocked a bowerbird!

All that work for a bald dickhead to fuck it all up

Today we head for the bright lights of Katherine, and with a population just under 9000 it’s the biggest town we’ve been in since Cairns.

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours

The journey into Limmen was slow going, as we were back on minor unsealed roads. We had a quick stop at the Southern Lost City, which are some cool rock formations. These types of formations are reasonably common, and every time they are called the lost city, the only reason these are called the Southern ones, is that there are some Western ones in the park too.

Lost City: neither lost nor a city

We arrived at Butterfly Springs campground, and circled the site looking for a good spot. It was reasonably empty, so we found a shady spot and set up. We noticed that the Landcruiser had taken some damage; the CB aerial had snapped earlier on the journey and we’d also lost one of the spotlights. Corrugated roads can take a toll on a car…

Battle scarred, but hard

Around 30 minutes later, two special looking off-road caravans pulled in and one in particular really turned us green with envy. They pulled up in a site near to us, electronically extended their roof and ta da, done. It was called a Kimberley Karavan and we just stared rather creepily at them. They came over and introduced themselves, I forgot their names milliseconds after they said them, and during the conversation they asked Becky if she’d like a look. Becky reported back that it had two kitchens (outdoor and indoor), a sleeping area, TV and strangely a toilet in the open area next to the indoor kitchen. It seems that you can poop, watch tv and cook simultaneously, doesn’t sound strange to me.

There have been a number of different people, from different nations, that have annoyed us on this trip. First there was German septum ring and the Danish girl he was traveling with (I didn’t mention her, but she was still weird and annoying), then the Swedish families and their bratty children and finally the Austrian couple who were quite loud, but generally friendly and only mildly annoying.  One thing you will notice from this list is that they are all European. Next up, the Dutch decided to give it a go... Now, my father-in-law is Dutch (although he has lived in Sweden for over 40 years), and he is very dear to my heart, but Dutch is now the language I dislike the most. Sorry, Evert, but you're still my favourite father-in-law. 

It was late afternoon when they pulled into the site and, despite there being plenty of space, they chose the site five metres from us. I think this might be a European thing, countries with high population density and no idea about personal space. Becky recognised them from Hells gate, as they were travelling with a small, whingy child. He was wearing nappies, but seemed to have a reasonable vocabulary and was walking. I have no idea how old that is. I normally ask my mate Scott, who has two kids, but he’s not here so I’d guess between 1 and 10 years old. Their travelling arrangement was odd, two males and a female aged between 20-30 and the kid. It seemed like an art-house movie, about a polygamous relationship where neither man knew the true paternity of the child. Later in the film one of the men (man 1) would develop true feelings for the woman but she wouldn’t feel the same. The men, best friends since childhood would fall out and later man 2 (revealed to be the true father) would die and the woman would turn to man 1 for comfort but he’d leave her to raise the child on her own. It’s a shit movie and my only hope was that man 2 died here, in Limmen NP.

I’m not that keen on kids, but I’m not going to blame the kid in this instance. Sure, he was a whiney little turd, but that’s to be expected when your piece of shit mother drags you around Australia, on long, dusty boring drives for sights you don’t give a shit about, with her two lovers, one of which may or may not be your father (we don’t know at this point in the film). Even without the child they were louder than everyone else. Occasionally the kid would flip out and have a melt down. At first, Becky was the only one who was annoyed at their lack of consideration for others, as I’d been drinking and was sure they’d leave first thing tomorrow. We sat in front of our fire, talking loudly in a passive aggressive manner, hoping they’d realise that we were in earshot and shut the fuck up. It didn’t work. The screaming kid was put to bed reasonably early and I fell asleep thanks to Mr XXXX gold.

At 5am the next morning, we awoke to the screaming knobhead kid and the now grating sound of his mother and (maybe) father speaking to him. The magical power of XXXX had worn off and I wasn’t in a good mood at all. Becky had some earplugs, so we tried them and they were fantastic. I awoke again at 8am to silence, ah silence my old friend! As soon as I took the earplugs out, my senses were flooded with the voices of noisy pricks again. The worst part was it didn’t look like they were packing up. We went for a walk round the campsite, a) to get away from the noise and b) to decide what to do. Do we wait to see if they pack up, or should we just ask? At times like this Becky is the one who approaches people, as we have realised that no matter what tone I use, it comes across as aggressive and potentially confrontational. She has a point. Becky went over and calmly asked if they were staying another night. “Yes”, they replied, “why? Was he awake too early this morning?” Becky told them that yes he was, he was loud all the time and that we’d be moving sites. She added that in future maybe they should have some consideration for others when setting up. They seemed shocked and little apologetic, like it had never occurred to them that they could be an annoyance…

We spent the next hour moving all our gear to a site on the other side of the campground. It was sweaty hard work, but totally worth it. The rest of the day was a dream; we’d wander down to the croc-free watering hole for a dip and listen to the screeches of the cockatoos,

Becky finally gave her approval for some pics on the blog

We spent most of our time sat around our site just doing nothing and everything. Occasionally we’d hear the kid melt down and smile at our decision to move. This really is a nice place.

Swing, baby, swing

That night we had chicken satay skewers, grilled over the fire and washed down with my old friend, Mr Gold. It was a dreamy end to a dreamy day. By the time we got up the next day they had gone, and we were free. Thirty minutes later, a German couple set up in an area not specifically for camping and in our line of sight… THOSE FUCKING EUROPEANS.