Monday September 27, 2010

Monday morning we had to wake up at 6 in order to pack up our stuff from the campsite, eat breakfast, and make sandwiches for lunch before leaving at 7. Once we got all of that done and got on the road, we made our way to the first gorge we were going to called Twin Falls Gorge. The drive took a couple hours mainly because in Darwin they pretty much only have dirt roads, and once we got to a certain point, we had to legitimately go off-roading. While we were off-roading we actually got to see some wild horses, which I’ve never seen before, so that was pretty cool. Upon arriving at the Twin Falls parking lot the first thing we did was cover ourselves in sunscreen and bug spray because Darwin is a bug filled sauna. We then proceeded to go to a boat, which would take us down a river through the gorge. As we were going down the river these enormous cliff walls surrounded us on either side rising probably close to 400 feet. You’ll have to look at the pictures on facebook to even get an idea of what they looked like because honestly, words can’t describe it. The boat took us as close to the center of the gorge as possible at which point we had to hike the rest of the way. The first part of the hike was through sand trails, but it eventually turned to boulders before we got to the beach at the center of the gorge. Looking at the center of the gorge all you see is white beach leading into water that is surrounded on 3 sides by 400-foot cliffs with a waterfall on one side. Granted the waterfall wasn’t running too much because it was the dry season, but the whole place was absolutely gorgeous. Again you’ll have to see the pictures on facebook to even get an idea of what it looked like. Sadly, no matter how badly we wanted to, we couldn’t go swimming in the water in the gorge because it was filled with crocodiles. Once we left Twin Falls we went off-roading to another waterfall, Jim Jim Falls. Again, since it was the dry season it wasn’t really running too much so they change the name to Jim Jim Drip. To get to this waterfall we had to hike the longest 900m (just over half a mile) I’ve ever seen through sand and boulders. Although the hike was long, we got to experience the most incredible thing. The forest you have to hike through has a huge butterfly colony in it and when you get close to the colony they all start to fly around you. I felt like I was in a movie with thousands of butterflies all around me. I tried to get a picture and video of it, but nothing does it justice. Once we passed the butterfly colony the sand path we were walking along became a boulder path. As it is, the temperature was around 85 to 90 degrees, now try climbing over black boulders to get to the center of the gorge. Needless to say every pore on our bodies was dripping sweat. When we finally got to the center of the gorge, we were in desperate need of a swim. Thankfully at the center of this gorge it was highly unlikely that there would be any crocodiles (aka there aren’t any but since it’s animals, which are unpredictable, they can’t just claim that there aren’t any), which meant that we got to go swimming in the water that was 63 m deep (about 200 feet), surrounded on three sides by 300-400 foot cliffs. This was probably the most refreshing swim I have ever had in my life. It was also the most surreal swim I’ve ever had. Swimming in the middle of a gorge filled with aquamarine water surrounded by 300 foot cliffs? The whole place just looked like something you see in National Geographic, not in real life. What was even more interesting was that as we swam the 100 m to the other side of the water where the “waterfall” was the water temperature kept changing. One minute you’d be in warm water and the next you’d be in cold water; such a strange sensation. When we swam to the other side of the water there were ledges that you could sit on, so our whole tour group stayed over there for a while and just hung out and talked. After a while we started getting hungry and decided to swim back to the other side to eat our sandwiches we had made for lunch. After lunch we hung out a while longer and swam a little bit more before we had to head back to the truck to head home. On the drive home we saw more wild horses and we were actually able to take some pictures of them (on facebook). Aside from seeing the wild horses, the drive home was uneventful. By the time we got back to Darwin it was dinnertime, so we quickly showered and then went to get some food. Our tour guide had recommended we go to the Victory Hotel for dinner if we wanted some cheap, good food. As college students, nothing sounds more appealing so Katie, Carrie and I went there for dinner. After the intense tour we had just had we felt that we deserved a treat, so after dinner we went to get some delicious gelato. The next morning we were going to be having a 5 am flight to Cairns meaning we’d have to be up at around 3, so after gelato we decided to go back to our hostel, pack our stuff up, and attempt to go to bed in our insanely hot room.