2006/06 Australia trip - Gungurul, Kakadu |
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Friday June 23rd
We made a slow start, enjoying the warm sunny morning at Wangi, and not too anxious to start the long drive back to the main highway and over to Kakadu national park. We’d stayed in Kakadu in 2002, but there were many backroad places we hadn’t had time to see. We took the Old Stuart Highway, a scenic and twisty road that parallels the much busier and newer Stuart Highway.
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Robin Falls (0.44) |
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We were looking for a spot for lunch and saw a sign for “Robin Falls”. A short way up the track was a perfect picnic spot, and a
trail going up the creek. The trail was rocky, a real ankle-wrecker, but the falls turned out to be gorgeous, with three steps, each with its own pool. It wasn’t deep enough to actually swim in but the pool felt just great for a soak on a really hot day. I couldn’t persuade Sandie to go in, and certainly not after we’d seen a snake in the water!
Last time in Kakadu we’d camped at Gunlom, famous for the waterfall scene in Crocodile Dundee, but this time we were aiming for Maguk at the end of another 4wd track. Yet again we found the track to be closed, so we opted for nearby Gungurul, not much more than a turnaround spot off the main highway.
There was still a little light left, so I set off to explore the nearby South Alligator River. The river bed was dry sand so it looked like we were too late in the dry season for the river to flow. I walked up the river bed for a way, a really spooky walk, with great gnarled gums in the river bed, and gigantic stands of bamboo along the banks. It was extremely humid under the trees, which seemed a bit odd for dry sand, so I looked further and found another section of dry bed, and then climbed up the bank to find a large flowing river. It must be a truly enormous river in the rainy season when all three beds are flowing. I didn’t hang around there long as I was now in prime crocodile territory. It ain’t called the “South Alligator” for nothing!
I still had time to climb a nearby hill to watch the sun set behind the escarpment, but then I had to scramble back as there is 
almost no twilight after the sun sets. In about ten minutes all is dark.
This was the warmest night so far on the trip. We opened all the windows and put the screens on. It was also our first bad encounter with the bugs. By cooking outside and having the light on inside we’d accumulated a cloud of assorted moths, flying ants, midges, and mosquitoes up around the light. When we went to bed and turned the light off they all came down to play, hopping around on our faces. I ended up leaving my headlight on in the far corner of the camper, a little searchlight for them all to play around.