Wednesday - Nourlangie Rock and Jim Jim Falls

We actually thought that the rock art at Nourlangie (Anbangbang Gallery) was better than at Ubirr. It was a very interesting walk and we followed it up with a walk to another lookout and then lunch by the side of Anbanbang Billabong where we spent a pleasant half hour or more watching a pair of rainbow beeaters hunting for dragon flies and other insects. I could kick myself for forgetting to take my bird id book as for ages I thought they were some kind of kingfisher.

We set off for the 50kms of dirt road to geet to the Jim Jim camp ground followed by 10kms of sand and water crossings - Frank was in his element but the last 10km was very slow going as we kept having to pull off the road to pass vehicles coming the other way. When we got to the carpark it was about another 1km scramble across rocks, but well worth it. The view when we finally got there was magnificent and we were both surprised and delighted to see that there was still water in the falls due to the late wet and the cyclone. Frank went to for a swim and I just sat on the sand admiring the view.

The cyclone had blown over quite a lot of the trees which the frequent burns haven't destroyed. Apparently the burns are a lot hotter these days in some areas due to the Gamba grass imported by the cattle industry as it grows taller than the spear grass and so carries the fire higher up the tree trunks above the thick protective bark up to where the bark is much thinner.

We drove back to camp to find that our peaceful little campsite had been surrounded, unfortunately our closest neighbours were a group of nine blocks from Melbourne (2 of them doctors) and a more loud mouthed, selfish bunch of blokes it would have been difficult to find. They were up well before light and made sure the rest of the campsite were awake with them.