Anyway, here I go. I finished the last w days of my Outback tour... This country is AMAZING!! The natural wonders are absolutely breathtaking. The last 3 days of the tour were spent going from one amazing swimming hole to another. One of the reasons I haven't been blogging is that the truck (which is the best way to describe it) rides have been like something from Great America... on one stretch, everyone of us caught some "air" from our seats about every 10 seconds or so. The truck is a 4 wheel drive that actually is a 4 wheel drive used for extreme off-roading. We had to trek over unpaved roads for about 100 miles and then cross rivers (some flowing & some not so much), to get to these amazing swimming holes.
The pictures I took don't do them justice, but I'll try to describe them... You walk through some form of torturous path, either over rock the size of small cars or up the side of a "rock" formation towering up into the sky. Once you reach the site, the forest opens up to display a pool of water fed by a beautiful waterfall. Some of the pools (aka swimming holes) are quite large 200' round, and they are surrounded by the gorge cut into rocks that reach 100s of meters above the water. The water drops over the falls and seems almost suspended in flight as it drops to the pool below.
Rock (cliff) diving seemed to be the thing to do with this group, and the most fearless was Zoe, a 20 something 100 lb Aussie dear(she)devil who would just climb as high as she could and jump off... Of course, the guys had to follow, but she out did a few of them... me included. She did one jump from about 30 feet into a pool about the size of an above the ground swimming (15' dia) pool... I skipped that one. Oh yah, we did check for submerged rocks... and crocs... they say these pools are "croc-free" but they can't guarantee it, they only say they are 99% sure there isn't a croc... And the keep checking to make sure one doesn't sneak in. Of course, I let someone else go in first :). I did make my share of cliff dives (I prefer to dive rather than jump) and it was a lot of fun. We also made our way under the falling waters of the falls. The most amazing was getting under Jim Jim Falls and having the water fall from the ledge some 400 feet or so above. The water just seems to keep coming and will occasionally drop bursts of water as though someone dropped an added pool on top of us. I tried to swim under the falls and it was very difficult not to drown, so we had to traverse the cliffs to get underneath the falls. It was a lot of fun and one of the most beautiful sites so far.
We also went croc hunting for real... we had a boat tour of one of the most croc infested billabogs in Kakadu National Park. A billabog is basically a marshy wetland that serves as the flood plain when the wet season comes: it's the dry season now, but this billabog still had an abundance of water. The guide told us that when flooded, the billabog would stretch for about 300 miles to the foothills of the nearby mountain range... that's a lot of water. It is currently about 200 feet across and he guaranteed us that if we tried to swim from one side to the other, there is a 100% chance we wouldn't make it before the crocs got us. Luckily, we were in a metal boat... We toured the water and found a 10' "salty" (they have both fresh and saltwater crocs here, but NO alligators) and the salty's are the big deadly ones. She was hanging on the banks just sunning herself, waiting for sundown to go feeding. We motored up to within 5 feet of her and she posed for pictures... well, kind of posed... she didn't move and was giving us the old hungry eye. The guide told us that in the boat, we were too large and she more than likely thought of us as a predator... so she was cautious. Then the guide wanted to show us how fast she could move so he closed in further until she got upset and flipped into the water in a flash and was gone. We also saw a smaller, less menacing freshy, which by comparison was not as exciting... they don't eat people, but could seriously hurt.
The Aussies on our tours are obsessed with sunrise & sunset, and rightly so. We seem to get up and watch the sun rise as we travel, and then make our way to some other amazing vantage point to watch it set. When the colors are "on", they are truly amazing. The sky is so blue it is hard to imagine. They tell me it's because they don't have pollution, but I think they are color enhancing it for the tourists.
On this last trek, I was paired up with a new group of people who were a lot of fun (despite all being under 30 : ). They had all been on tour together for 7 days and were a pretty tight group... But they were really nice and let the newcomers join their fun. Some of us are still in Darwin, so I'm meeting up with a couple of them to tour the city... So I've got to run...
Later,
Dan
ps pictures to be loaded soon.... : )
the water is usually pretty damn cold.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Darwin, Australlia
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment