Jim Jim Falls

8th June 2013

We had planned to wake early this morning and go to Yellow Waters to see the sunrise, but given the girls had a late night last night, we thought best to let them have a sleep in, which was a good call as after breakfast we drove to Jim Jim Falls.

The turn off to Jim Jim was about 30kms from our campsite and then we had a 55km dirt road drive into the carpark (45km of which was gravel and the last 10km was a 4wd track, which was a bit of fun).

The hike into Jim Jim, was about 2km from the carpark to the falls and started with an easy path to follow but by the end we were literally rock hoping over very large boulders to make it to the plunge pool at the bottom of the falls.

Jim Jim Falls was absolutely stunning, again it is a place where photos and words can not really capture how huge the gorge was, how high the falls were and just how magnificent it felt to be experiencing this beautiful part of Kakadu and the falls weren't even flowing that hard, but it was honestly right up there with one of the best places I have been to on this trip.

                   

             The Girls hiking into Jim Jim Falls                             The Family at Jim Jim Falls

Jim Jim Falls - this photo just can't do it justice

After a very, very refreshing dip (the water was that cold that it gave me a head spin when I jumped in) we hiked back out of the gorge and had our lunch before driving back to the campsite. We decided that as it was only 3pm, that we would pack down the van and move to another camp site closer to the next waterfall in the park that we were keen to see. So after about an hour and half we pulled into Gungurul camp area and found that it was basically a carpark, which was disappointing to say the least.

We had a quick drive around and decided that one of the camping areas just off the carpark, which looked like it was normally reserved for tents, could be ok for us to squeeze into. So after driving the wrong way up a one way loop road to get a better angle I managed to park the van between the fire pit and concrete picnic table, great!

Camping at Gungurul

After we set up, we walked up to a nearby lookout (about a 1km walk) to check out the view with the plan being to watch the sunset before heading back to camp. Unfortunately Maggie had a call of nature that needed us to return to the camp site, meaning we missed the sunset but still enjoyed the walk nonetheless.

View from Gungurul Lookout

Tomorrow we are heading to Maguk, a waterfall and swimming hole that the doctor at the Jabiru Medical Centre said was her favourite in the park, so we are all looking forward to that, especially Maggie, until then....