Half-lap Day 51: Darwin -> Edith Falls

It was another cooler morning. Funny how we have adapted quite well to the hotter weather and our interpretation of cool/cold has moved up the scale quite a bit. No one had felt ready to leave yesterday, today we were all prepared and it felt like the right day to move on.

We got up and continued packing and organizing our stuff. When the kids woke Caitlin read them some stories from her iPad mini. After they’d had breakfast they went to say goodbye to the chickens, chicks, rabbit and guinea pig. We finished packing in the late morning, then went and chatted to our hosts before eventually saying goodbye to them and the dog and leaving Darwin after 8 nights.

We’d had no trouble at all with the car while we were in Darwin. On our way south the temperature briefly started to climb – when Tony increased his speed the temp dropped again. It seems that it really is just a matter of managing the load on the engine and not pushing it too hard at low revs.

We drove to Edith Falls, just north of Katherine, which we’d been keen to see when we were in Katherine and hadn’t made it. We hoped we’d be able to camp at the campground there, but it was full when we arrived. We changed into our swimmers and headed down to the falls. These falls were not spectacular in themselves like some of the others we’ve seen – instead there was a large pool of water surrounded on two sides by tall tall cliffs, with a small waterfall sneaking out between some rocks in the cliffs on the far side. The point where we entered the water had a shallow channel and then a rocky island, with the larger pool beyond the island. I could just stand up all the way across the channel – but I preferred to swim as the bottom was a mix of sand and rocks and was hard to walk on. The water was clear and fresh and the channel was edged on the shore side with very green trees which reflected in the water. Swimming there, with the cliffs rising up on our other side, felt so relaxing and refreshing and I was so glad we’d come.

Caitlin was nervous about crocodiles – there are freshwater crocs here, the signs say not to swim between 7pm and 7am, but when the pool is open it is safe the rest of the time. She was reluctant to spend much time in the water, so she and LiAM explored the rocky island. Tony spent some time skimming stones along the water of the channel. He and Millie stayed near the edge then while I joined the others on the island. I walked across to the other side and it was very hard to balance and walk on the rocks. There was a lovely view across the pool to the falls and cliffs. I decided to swim back rather than walk back. It wasn’t hard to swim to the end of the island and then back along the channel, and I enjoyed swimming out in the larger pool too. LiAM stayed on the island, sitting on sun-warmed rocks and looking at the cliffs and the insects around him. He's not so keen on swimming in waterfall plunge pools - he's done it a few times now and figures that's enough. He's not not that fussed on even seeing the waterfalls anymore - but he usually finds something to amuse him when we are there.

Caitlin had swum back to shore and was sitting on the steps, I stood in the water and chatted to her and little fish nibbled at the dry skin on our feet and legs. The first couple of times it happened I yelped and jumped a bit, but I soon got used to it and it was cool watching them swim around our legs and come up for a little nibble.

Once we were all out of the water we walked along the path a little further to get different views of the falls, cliffs and pool. There was a bridge across a creek that left the pool, with some archer fish swimming underneath, and we watched them for a while. We went and got changed and looked at some photos of what the place looks like in the wet season – very different!, then headed back to the car.

I’d found a free campsite back on the highway a little south of the turn off. It looked good although there were no toilets – we decided to try our first toilet-free camping and see how it went – if it’s ok it opens up a lot more of the free camps to us.

The site was basically lots of cleared areas in amongst the (sparse) bush. We found a flat-enough spot a bit back from the road – not in the area closest to the road, but at the front of a larger area further back. The ground was too hard for pegs, so we used the car and Tony’s bike to attach the guy ropes to, and the beds hold down the end of the tent so we can manage without pegging the floor in. The kids explored the campsite and Tony and I sat and relaxed for a while. We’d set up just before sunset and it was a lovely clear night – with hardly any mosquitoes. It was really relaxing sitting and looking at the trees and stars and feeling excited about camping and exploring more places. The moon rose a bit later – one night past full, so it was really bright and we could almost manage without lanterns. The temperature was really pleasant - it was probably around 28 degrees, much cooler than the evenings had been in Darwin and we all enjoyed it and laughed that we thought 28 was cool. We had noodles for tea, Caitlin kept reading stories to the others and we made a few phone calls to friends. We braved the bush to go to the toilet (everyone was fine) and made sure we put away all our food (not sure what animals might be around here) and headed in to bed to read a couple of chapters of Brisingr.