Gunlom Falls

37.4°C in the shade today.  It was very hot.  Those storm clouds are still building, and the few locals I have spoken to are looking forward to the wet season, and the temperature dropping. 

Despite the heat we managed to hike up to the Gunlom lookout, above the falls, on our free ranger guided tour.  Joel, our long red curly haired guide, grew up here with his mum and dad (his dad was ranger in the park then) and was very nice and informative.  The eight of us were his only customers but he patiently answered our questions and put up with our interruptions.

Joel showed us the native passion fruit vine, the red apple tree, the green plum tree, the big lump on the side of melaleuca trees that store water, pandanus the aborigines use for weaving, the iron wood tree they use for making spear heads, and then walked with us to the top of the falls where there were four beautiful rock pools.  They were clear with sandy bottoms and we could see fish darting around in the green water.  Joel went back down the mountain and everyone had a much anticipated swim.  The bigger kids (and Grant) jumped in off the sides, and even Oskar and also Nadine (after MUCH consideration) jumped off a smaller rock into the water.  Once she’d had that first jump, Nadine couldn’t be stopped and she said she jumped 20 times in total!  Maybe she will be an adventurer after all.

Swimming on top of Gunlom Falls

Down the dusty mountain for lunch and a lazy afternoon, trying to keep cool.  Chess, checkers and backgammon are still popular, however I think Dominic might have a few “in house rules!”

About 4.30pm it started to cool off and we braved the resident fresh water crocodile and swam in the plunge pool below the falls.  No one got eaten much to Dominic’s relief and we came back to light our fire (how silly are we) and cook our dinner in our camp oven.  We managed mince stew and then a peach clafouti – both very tasty – before rushing off to the free ranger slide show on bush tucker, also by our friend Joel.  Again we were the only customers and thought we’d missed it until he came hurtling along, 30 minutes late, having changed his flat tyre on the dirt road, in the dark, by the light of his mobile phone.  Such dedication.  We were very appreciative of his great presentation on aboriginal food, and “calendar trees” (the kapok tree is one of those, as is the water pandanus) that indicate to the aborigines, among other things, when to dig up freshwater crocodile eggs and when they will hatch.  Cooper perhaps didn’t pick up quite so much.  He fell asleep on our picnic blanket with his bare rear end in the air.  I hope it wasn’t too visible in the light of the slide presentation!

I found out about the Cane Toads.  Apparently there used to be a lot of large goannas in the park, but they have mostly died out in the last 7 years as cane toads have moved in. I thought that was very sad.  If only the salt water crocodiles would decide cane toads were the yummiest things ever, it might solve both of those problems.

Tomorrow we’ll see Joel one more time then move a bit further into Kakadu.