We pulled out of Jim Jim Falls camping area to get to Cooinda/Yellow Water to be on the 9am river cruise boat. Not being the leader of early mornings, I still managed to join the enthusiasm of being fed and packed and on the road by 7.30am. I even amaze myself sometimes. I even worked out how to add the READ MORE option to these posts. So click on the MORE thingy and we’ll see if it works.

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We spent a quiet evening not far from the Barramundi Creek and then moved on to Jim Jim Falls camping ground. It’s about 57km off the main road and they say it’s four wheel drive only. I think they do that to stop the hire cars suffering the many corrugations, but it’s not really 4WD only. The camping ground is in a beautiful quiet place. We dropped the trailer and headed off to see Twins Falls – imaginatively names for its twin waterfalls, flowing into, you guessed it, the Twin Falls Creek. There is a river crossing to get there (okay, so the 2WDs would definitely not make it across this – although one of the ubiquitous Wicked Campers did attempt the crossing last week, and got stuck half way). You can’t walk all the way to Twin Falls, so National Parks operates a small boat upstream for about 15 minutes where you can then continue on foot. This is so people don’t swim upstream – and make themselves crocodile food.

It’s like a tropical dream – but you can’t swim here!

There’s a bit of rock hopping to reach this amazing spot……

And somehow the peace and serenity is just a little dented by these big yellow signs.

After the return river crossing, there’s a short walk to Budjmii Lookout. This great view of the escarpment greeted us as we popped our heads over the rocks at the end of the climb.

Onto Jim Jim Falls. This is a rather well known spot, and requires about a kilometre of clambering over rocks – but worth every step of the way. The falls are 215m high and were flowing quite spectacularly, although they can dry up in the dry season. The gorge is epic.

The boys swam across the pool to the waterfall for a refreshing shower. The water was freezing! You can’t even see them – but Ferg is almost at the foot of the falls, and John and Harry are standing on a ledge under the falls.

You can clamber further round the end of the gorge to a pristine white sandy beach and bask in the sun, or swim in the clear water.

Here’s a different view of the Falls, from further back.

Harry took this one (below) looking up at the towering cliff tops above us.

We had a lovely evening near the Falls where the sun lit up the escarpment with the Top End hues we see in the brochures.

We topped up the pantry and the fridge in Katherine, found a decent double shot flat white (this has been nothing but a long shot since leaving home), collected a replacement battery for John’s laptop (which had a serious case of black screen disease), and headed up the road to Kakadu. We had planned to go to a place called Gunlom, or Waterfall Creek Gorge in whitefella language, but at 50km each way, we changed our plan to check out Maguk (pronounced magook, as in hook) or Barramundi Gorge for whitefellas – you’re getting the idea that everything here has two names these days.

We walked up along the edge of the Barramundi Creek enjoying the shade, as it was now at least 32 degrees.

Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to swim just here due to crocs – such a pity as it looked so inviting!

The path started fairly easily, but soon became a boulder hop – only about 900m though. Still enough to make my knees sad again. Pity really, as my two bags of peas are now keeping the cool box (a bit) cool.

Finally we reached this amazing pool.

Above, you can just see Ferg and Harry in the foreground. We swam across to the waterfall for a shower and relaxed in the sunshine. John tried (unsuccessfully) to climb the cliff face, but that’s to be expected.

That’s John in the photo above.

The termite mounds are getting bigger and bigger the further north we go. Here’s Harry measuring up against one near where we camped.

We (read John) spent quite some time researching the various off road camper trailers on the market prior to making our choice of Adventure Off Road Camper (sadly lacking in the creative naming department) made in Adelaide. These were recommended by friends who are on their second one (thanks Dick and Jacq). So all along our trip so far we’ve been looking out for fellow owners of camper trailers the same brand as ours.

Now if you’re in the market for a camper trailer, caravan, camper van, motor home – whatever – don’t bother with the Caravan and Camping Show that makes its annual trip around the nation. Just head to a packed tourist destination – Uluru should do you – and there is your best selection with unbiased opinions by the bucket load. John will often disappear for an hour at a time to sniff around the camping ground. And he always comes back and says “ours is better”. But I’m sure they all say that.

Until we arrived at Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge), we hadn’t seen a single Trevor the Trailer look alike. We spent two nights there, and on each of those evenings in the camping ground we were approached by a fellow traveller who also had a Trevor clone! This entailed a good hour with each new buddy going over the intricacies of our trailers. We learnt a lot from each other, and will probably never go to the dark side – meaning buy another brand. A bit like being a Canon camera owner. You’ll never, ever buy a Nikon.

It’s a sure thing that if you have an iconic tourist destination like Katherine Gorge, and it’s only 30 km from the rather urban town of Katherine (they even have a McDonalds!), and the road is sealed, then you can bet there’ll be plenty of punters there. Nonetheless, the co-management by traditional land owners and National Parks is well done here in Nitmuluk NP. The information centre is excellent offering many options for visitors and lots of info for those that are self sufficient, and the camping options are many. There’s a pool surrounded by green grass and lots of shade. And the washing machines are FREE! I did two loads, and the toasty weather here means that once you’ve pegged out the last item, you can go back to the other end of the line and start bringing the washing in!

John and the boys took the Mango for an adventure up the Katherine River and the Gorges and I got the last seat on the Tommy Tourist Cruise boat.

My cruise saw a freshwater croc –

And some ancient aboriginal painting, way up high above the water line.

It’s a wide gorge, with safe swimming at lots of places. I’d love to see the river raging through during the wet season 10 metres higher than this:

And my bird photo for the day – a kookaburra, um – dare I say? – sitting in the old gum tree.

Meanwhile, the boy team got way up to Gorge 6 (my cruise went to Gorge 3). They had to portage several times between gorges.

Below is Gorge 6 camping site. There weren’t too many fellow paddlers this far up the river.

The boy team was back at camp by about 3.30pm – ready for a pool session!

They had a great time, and John said they were champion paddlers. Well done boys – 23km today.