Day 52 14/05/2011 Umbrawarra Gorge – Kambolgie (Kakadu National Park)

Day 52 14/05/2011 Umbrawarra Gorge – Kambolgie (Kakadu National Park)

With everyone looking healthy this morning we headed off for a walk down Umbrawarra Gorge, swimmers were packed just in case we found a nice spot to swim.  The information booth advised that swimming was permitted and there were not an crocodiles in the river going through the gorge, in fact by the middle of the dry season the creek had normally dried up. 



Umbrawarra Gorge - our swimming hole for the day.



The walk started out very civilised, well for the first 1km we were treated to a nice concrete pathway and then we were on our own, scaling huge boulders and rock hopping across the creek.  The weather was fabulous for walking and we had a great time rock hopping!!  The kids certainly got right into the walk.  The gorge was spectacular, the cliffs of the gorge were a gorgeous sandstone with strong creams, reds and pink colours.  The water was clear and there were lots of little rapids.  James was right Umbrawarra Gorge was certainly worth the drive.



Umbrawarra Gorge - we climbed all over these rocks!!



We walked down the gorge as far as we could before eucalyptus sapling’s, especially large boulders and deeper ponds that we needed to wade through sent us back.  We found two lovely water holes and Zac and Callum managed to fit in a swim. Claudia couldn’t swim as I had inadvertently forgotten to bring her swimmers!!  I wasn’t popular!! She did though manage to fall in fully clothed and while we all found that pretty funny, she was not impressed!!

After a great mornings walk we headed back to the camp area for lunch.  Pete had agreed to light the fire once more and the boys all enjoyed bolognaise jaffle’s cooked to perfection on the fire.  This was the best way to use up our bread that was now a few days old!! 



the kids rock hopping!!  The wouldnt
wait for me!!



After lunch we packed up and headed up the road to Kakadu National Park.  We picked a spot for the night and settled in.  We knew that all of our warnings about salt water crocodiles was beginning to make sense to the kids when we headed off to the causeway to get water for washing up and showers!!  The kids were full of questions about where the crocodiles lived, how would we spot one and what were they to do if they saw one??  Run was the answer given to the last question and for all the other crocodile related questions we just reiterated ‘treat all water sources as if there are crocodiles and don’t go near the water’s edge!!’ They watched diligently as Pete got the water from the causeway – they called it keeping crocodile guard!! We had been told earlier at a Tourist Information Centre that it was OK to get water from the causeway but the lady strongly cautioned us about swimming further upstream.  She didn’t need to worry about it, I wasn’t swimming anywhere unless it was clearly signposted that it was okay to do so.

Because of the long wet season this year there are still a number of places in Kakadu that have not been opened to tourists either because of road damage or because they have not cleared the plunge pools of salt water crocodiles but we are confident that there is enough to keep us in the National Park for the next few days as we slowly make our way north.