This a huge open cut mine that just should not be in this National Park. While it is obviously providing jobs, to me it is just wrong. Now that I have that off my chest - Back to today!
We had a very busy day today visiting Jim Jim Falls, Twin Falls and Ubirr. Jim Jim and Twin Falls are found after traveling nearly two hours along a very corrugated and rough track only accessible by 4WD.
The last
10 km from the Garnamarr campground to Jim Jim Falls is a good four wheel drive
track. It has sandy patches and some creek crossings.
The walk
from the car park to the plunge pools at the bottom of Jim Jim Falls is only
900 metres long. The first part was pretty easy going, yet the second half requires
scrambling and rock hopping over boulders. The closer you get to the end of the
gorge the more impressive it becomes. It's hard
to capture the area, everything is just too massive.
The sheer size and scale of the Jim Jim Falls was amazing. You will note in the photos below there is one of the girls looking like ants at the bottom of the photo. This hopefully gives some perspective of the magnitude of this water fall. After a 1 km walk in from the car park and some rock hoping, we were greeted with spectacular views. To the west of the falls, their was a sandy beach that allowed you to have a swim, yet the water was pretty cold given that it does not get a lot of sunlight throughout the day.
Twin Falls
Heading
to Twin Falls we experienced our first significant creek crossing as we crossed
Jim Jim Creek. The water was not too high – probably .8m, yet it was a positive
experience thank goodness! I was glad to have the snorkel on the Prado though.
A boat shuttle took us
through the gorge and droped us about a 400m walk from the falls. The clarity
of the water was amazing as were the colours of the rocks and plants around the
gorge. As we approached the falls, the view was spectacular and even better we
had the area to ourself for 20 minutes. The pool below the falls is surrounded
by a sandy beach making it a perfect area for lunch.
Ubirr
Groups of Aboriginal people camped in rock shelters around Ubirr to take advantage of the enormous variety of foods available from the East Alligator River, the Nadab floodplain, the woodlands, and the surrounding stone country. The rock overhang of the main gallery provided an area where a family could set up camp. Food items were regularly painted on the back wall, one on top of the other, to pay respect to the particular animal, to ensure future hunting success, or to illustrate a noteworthy catch. Among the animals painted in the main gallery are barramundi, catfish, mullet, goannas, long-necked turtles, pig-nosed turtles, rock ringtail possums, and wallabies.
Most of the X-ray art in the main gallery is from the freshwater period, so it is less than 1500 years old.There are also some interesting examples of contact art. A 'white fella' is depicted in trousers, shirt and boots and with his hands in his pockets; another, with a pipe in his mouth and his hands on his hips, is 'bossing us Aboriginal people around'. These figures are probably early buffalo hunters painted around the 1880s. Close to the main gallery is a painting of a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). Archaeological evidence suggests that thylacines became extinct on the mainland about 2000 to 3000 years ago.
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| white fella with a pipe in his mouth |
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| white fella with his hands on hips |
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| thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) |
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| x ray art - long necked turtle at the main gallery |
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| long-necked turtle |
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| x ray art - barramundi at the main gallery |
We headed up to the lookout for sunset which overlooks the Nadab floodplain. The view got better and better as the sun set in the West. This saw the end of a long day for all, yet it was an impressive one that captured many of the great sites of Kakadu.
At this time of year, there is a lot of controlled burning of the country to promote regrowth. As we headed home, the sight of the country burning was quite impressive. Unfortunately the colours do not show up that well in the photo below.
