DiNo's Travels Around Australia - 2014/2015/16/17: Day 64

What a change. Last night we had a cool change and this morning cardigans were the order of the day, for a while anyway. The humidity was lower too.

So cardigan in hand we boarded a bus at 6.30am to take us to a two hour Yellow Water cruise, on the West Alligator river and its associated wetlands. Firstly we saw the sun rise and this was the signal for life on the wetlands to awake. Whistling ducks, whistling kites, magpie geese, egrets, herons of all shapes and sizes, darts, white chested sea eagles, kingfishers, Jabiru, Jesus birds (they walk on the lily pads) and many others hit the airways or fluttered around in the safety of the mangroves. We saw the obligatory crocodiles, three in all. The river was alive with fish and turtles and other aquatic life. A cool morning warmed to the beauty of this magnificent place and the two hours passed in a flash.

After the cruise we headed off to Jim Jim Falls. What an experience. 50 km of excellent gravel road and then 12 km of really rough 4WD road into the falls parking area. Then, oh horror of horrors, 900m of rock hopping madness to get us to the falls. The falls drop a couple of hundred metres from the escarpment into a beautiful pool with a sandy beach. Sadly the falls were in shadow and there was not a lot of water flowing over them. Having basked in the joy of making it to this beautiful place we then realised we had to undertake the return "madness". There were a couple of spills on the way back which cost some skin from us both, but that was forgotten as we agonised over the sore knees and thighs which visited us at the car park on our return. A sandwich and a cuppa mended our spirits which got us home. Nothing funnier than seeing two old fogies, having performed beyond even reasonable means, getting out of the Landcruiser when they got home.

140km today included gravel road, heroic off road driving but we are elated at the return. We made it to Jim Jim Falls - and back.

An aside: This is only the second day the falls have been open after the big wet. Access is only by high clearance (4WD) vehicles yet there were still quite a few people there.