And Now We are Two!

We headed into Kakadu on the Friday afternoon, stopping only to get a parks pass, with the aim to end up near to Jim Jim Falls to allow us to explore further the next day. In the end we settled on Jim Jim Billabong due to it being not far off the Kakadu Highway, even though it was a bit passed the falls. That night Max was very excited about being on the road again so we didn’t get to sleep very early, resulting in a very long day.
Next morning I was surprised how early Max was up, however I think the excitement of setting off was keeping his adrenalin firing, so we made for Jim Jim and Twin Falls. Part way in was a campsite and desk at which a ticket could be purchased to ride the boat out to Twin Falls. Armed with our ticket (and therefore deciding to start with Twin Falls) we set off – although not before the parks employee had looked over our vehicle to make sure he was happy that it was up to getting us there. Apparently they try to dissuade anybody driving out there who doesn’t have a snorkel fitted due to a river crossing half way, although the water only came up to the top of the wheels – apparently it has dropped considerably in the last few days.
Twin falls consisted on a path along the edge of the river to a boat mooring, where people were shuttled about 400m further along due to the gorge being pretty much sheer on both sides. On landing again there is a couple of hundred metre scramble over rocks and along ledges to the falls themselves, with a sandy ‘beach’ alongside the pool at the bottom of the falls. Sadly, especially for Max, swimming wasn’t allowed due in part to the risk of crocs and I am guessing partly due to ecological damage in that area of the river.
Max really enjoyed the wander to and from the boat through all the rocks but on disembarking on the return trip he started to flag as the past couple of days caught up with him. Due to this we decided not to take the other track up to the top of the waterfall, which proved a good choice as he didn’t even have the energy on the drive home to keep his head steady as we bounced along.
The campsite itself was very comfortable and popular and Max decided that ‘even Mum would like this one’, which I think was code for Mum wouldn’t have liked the one we stayed in the night before – although I am not so sure, I think she would have been fine the night before.
Next morning we set off for Jim Jim Falls, which turned out to be a significantly shorter drive. Jim Jim Falls required almost a km of scrambling across rocks and Max was once again in his element – with the early night and relaxed start to the morning evidently leaving him refreshed. It was amazing how much more we appeared to enjoy the walk in than most others that passed us on the way in. I am guessing this is because we had no real time limits while most other people were trying to fit as much as possible into a few short days – especially those on guided tours. This resulted in us taking a myriad of detours to inspect and explore things that caught our eye.
When we made it to the falls Max was straight in as this was one place identified as being safe for swimming. The only issue was that it was predominantly quite slippery rocks and very deep in most places. Due to this it wasn’t long before I needed to be helping him around to all the places he wanted to explore (what a chore). Suddenly it was obviously lunch time as everybody else had disappeared, however Max was having such a good time he suggested we skipped lunch and had an early dinner (we did have lunch with us but had left it in the fridge in the car). About an hour later the afternoon shift arrived and the pool was again full of activity.
The trip back took even more of a meandering nature than the way in, with Max agreeing that he had obviously been tired the day before as we drove back, due to how much better he felt.

Liz here: for some reason I can't comment on this post but as I have admin rights to the blog I'm sneaking my comments in here. The pics look sensational!! Some reminded me of Florence Falls - clear water, lots of rocks, lush foliage. I can't believe Max wanted to postpone lunch - he really must be loving it!!