Kakadu
What a glorious three days in Kakadu – filled with sunshine, swimming in waterfalls, visiting aboriginal rock art sites and seeing crocodiles. The variety of nature, wildlife, history and culture means that Kakadu has something for everyone.
On the way to our first campground in Kakadu, we drove with the Falcon 17 along the 4WD road to Boulder Creek Falls. The information centre had said it was open for swimming however, as we discovered once we arrived, there was no water in the falls! But all was not lost, as we got some great footage of the Falcon 17 on the corrugated road.
We based ourselves at the Cooinda Lodge campground for two nights and enjoyed the Lodge swimming pool, playground and the Barra Bar which served delicious food! On the first night, we did the Yellow Water Billabong Cruise at sunset. It was a great time to be out on the water and we saw plenty of wildlife – lots of crocodiles, birds, buffalo and fish, as well as waterlilies. The sunset was beautiful and it was a relaxing way to spend a couple of hours.
The next day we planned to visit Barramundi Gorge (Maguk) Waterfall and Jim Jim Falls. We arrived at Maguk and walked roughly 1km from the carpark to the falls. It was a reasonably easy walk, going through a forest of trees, crossing a creek, walking over rocks and finally reaching the waterfall. It was a picturesque walk and Hudson did it easily – and he loved it as climbing over rocks is what he enjoys most.
What a beautiful sight we were greeted with! Maguk is such a beautiful, relaxing waterhole – refreshing clear water, lots of fish and a fast-flowing waterfall. After a couple of hours here we got out of the water for some food and planned to head to Jim Jim Falls, however once chatting with other people there, we heard that the walk to Jim Jim was more challenging and involved climbing large boulders. It was a very hot day so we decided to abandon that idea and got back into the water at Maguk and spent another couple of hours there!
Our last night in Kakadu was spent at the Jabiru Lodge campground. We based ourselves here to go to Nourlangie rock art site, Cahill’s Crossing and Ubirr. Seeing the ancient rock art at Nourlangie and Ubirr was amazing and definitely not to be missed – including the hike to the lookout at Ubirr which gave spectacular 360 degree views.
It would have been ideal to have an extra 1-2 days in Kakadu as there is so much to see here. The distance between each waterfall and the time it takes to drive the 4WD roads and walk the rocky paths from the carpark to the falls means that you need ample time to fit these in. We are keen to come back again one day and spend more time exploring the other waterfalls which we didn’t have time to visit.
