A casual enough start to the day but still beat the last of the party goers out of camp. Have sympathy for parents trying to round up teenage girls. Bounced back over the rocky road and straight up the Arnhem Scarp (about 300 m of steep climbing). But we made it and to the ranger’s station where there is a small museum of bull catchers, mining equipment and other stuff from before the National Park was declared. No rangers were in attendance but a little sign said to pay the park fees at Cooinda Resort or Jabiru further up the road.

A short blurt down the very flat tablelands road to the Majuk turnoff. Then it was off the bitumen onto a beaut gravel road. The road then deteriorated into sandy corrugated crud so bad that that the 10 km in took about 1.5 hours. We were shaking our heads at the drivers who insisted on driving very fast on these bad roads even when towing trailers and caravans. Not only are they destroying their vans and suspensions they are rapidly corrugating the roads.

I dismounted very quickly (but stayed upright) to Brian’s delight who thought I was showing off my ability to handle rough track to a troopie full of gorgeous backpackers. In realty, the tie down straps from my front pannier had got caught in the front disc brake and locked the front wheel.

Pushed our bikes through the sand to the carpark, tied them up and pulled out the swimming cossies (‘togs’ to a Queensland bred like me, ‘swimmers’ to a Western Australian sand groper) and set off to walk to the falls. Chris O’B took the lower track to the lower plunge pool.

Past the beautifully clear but (apparently) crocodile-infested Barramundi Creek, then up an ever steeper track and across the top of the scarp to bathe in the crystal clear pools above the falls. A family with three kids from about 2 years to 8 years was in the top pool with the 6 and 8 year olds jumping a good 4 metres from the rocks into the upper pool. Not to be outdone I did the same and nearly pushed my bum through my belly button when I hit the water. Legs together when jumping boys. Brian and Christine were less than impressed with the showing off.

Back down to croc creek, fill the water bottles and push the bikes back through the sand to the campsite. Brian did his usual thing and carried nearly 14-16 litres of water to camp while the rest of us took about 12 litres. Always take a Brian with you when camping.

A pleasant camp although firewood was a bit hard to find.