Kakadu, Day 2

You know, I will never understand people who love to go camping. There is nothing fun about waking up at 6:30 AM to the sounds of birds chirping. Especially when they’re giant parrots and their chirp is more of a squawk. Also, what’s so appealing about sleeping on the ground? And don’t even get me started on the lack of personal hygiene.

Besides the whole camping part, this was probably my favorite day in Australia so far. We woke up bright and early Sunday morning so we could head to our destination of Gunlom Falls. After a rocky start (the car we were taking wouldn’t start, so the boys had to get out and push to get it going), our journey to the falls was going great…that is until we turned off the paved road onto an unpaved road. We were on this stretch of unpaved road for a good, 40 minutes or so. This wouldn’t have been bad if us three girls weren’t crammed in the back of a Land Cruiser, but we were, so it ended up being the car ride from hell.

All was made up for though once we got there. Off in the distance we could see the falls, and I couldn’t wait to get to the top. Once everyone was situated, a guide led us to the top, which involved a pretty intense hike where we were climbing up sandstone rocks. Don’t get me wrong, the views were amazing up there, but I was focused solely on jumping into the freshwater pools at the top of the waterfall. The water was chilly and the rocks a bit slippery, but I don’t think this experience could be created anywhere else except Australia. I could try to describe it to you, but a picture speaks a thousand words.

 

 Fun fact: They shot part of Crocodile Dundee at this waterfall. 

 

Here we are swimming by one of the waterfalls. From left to right: Hannah, Amanda, me, Jacob, Matt and Jared

After swimming around for about 2 hours, we trekked back down the mountain to eat and explore the base of the waterfall. You could go swimming down at the bottom, but with the possibility of freshwater crocodiles. Aussies say that they don’t bother you, but I decided not to take any chances.

At the base of Gunlom Falls.

 These lizards were all over the place.

Fun Story: We almost ran out of gas on the way back to the campsite, so we pulled over to the side of the road and sat for half an hour, waiting for another bus to come by just in case. We ended up not running out; it was a camping miracle.

We watched the sunset that night at Yellow Waters, which should’ve been named Yellow Fever, judging by the amount of mosquitoes that were present.

I love how it looks like there are two suns.

Fun Story #2: Later that night, around 11, when we (Hannah, Amanda, and myself) went to the bathroom there was a commotion and it turned out there was a frog just chilling in one of the toilets. 5 minutes after the discovery, someone accidentally flushed it. Let that be a lesson to all frogs…toilets are a bad place to hang out.

That’s about it for Day 2, I’m currently in Melbourne, so look for Day 3 of Kakadu and my Melbourne adventures soon!

-Haley