Category Archives: Nothern Territory

Quick trip to Berry Springs

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I was supposed to go fishing but I was a little too eager on my squats Thursday night, given my back was a bit sore, I thought a nice trip to Berry Springs would be better.

Given it was a public holiday I expected it to be full, and the carpark was overflowing when we got there around 10.30am. However it is a very large space, so really wasn’t too bad.

I was a bit more comfortable when I got out to the deeper water. The kids were being kids and super excited in the water, which is fine, but when your lower back is a whisker away from a spasm, it was easy to get a little freaked out.

Had a nice picnic and a swim for a few hours. Claire really likes “big things” and since we had never been to the big stockwhip we made a detour on the way back.

 

 

Clear water, No fish

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Had a lot of fun camping recently, see my website for the stories. But it’s meant that my poor boat hasn’t gotten a decent run in a while. I’m getting more busy, not less, until mid September. So with a public holiday on the Friday, off we went.

Hit Stokes point first thing, a few splashes and good boof had me in an optimistic mood. For those who don’t know, Darwin has huge tides. Combined with heavy dry season wind, water visibility is usually poor. Today was totally different, I could see the ground from about 2.5m, it was amazing. It meant I was able to sight cast, but nope, no luck there.

Moved across to the weeds near Swires Bluff. Water visibility meant we saw about 20 rays, and about 10 turtles, a few said hello. Saw lots of fish too, trevelly, queenies, sharks, a bright blue beast sitting on the bottom I was unable to identify. (It didn’t look like a tuskfish to me). Twitched some hardbodies by them all. And some squidgies. Also: gulp, poppers, vibes… you get the idea. Bait fish and life everywhere, none of it interested. Here we caught our sole fish for the day, a long tom.

Once the tide started to recede we the rocks at talc head, and soon saw schools of fish swimming out of the creek. None of them wanted to bite. In fairness, they may have been milkfish, I was struggling to identify them. Up and down, plus a quick trip to some flats on the way home… pretty disappointing day. You could not have picked a better day for it. If I had of known the wind would have been so far down, I would have taken some bait and sat somewhere.

Two boats at the ramp also came up empty.

Ah well, good way to spend a day.

Got:
Joe: Long tom

Story of the trip:
Water visibility. Never seen the harbour like that before.

Boat problems:
Haven’t launched it in a while and when we went to push it off it was firmly stuck. Just would not budge. Then we tried this new method that I’d heard about, which involves unhooking the boat before trying to launch. Slid off no worries!

Snap
In two metres of water here, check out the bottom

Jarrangbarnmi – Location

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Jarrangbarnmi is also known as Koolpin Gorge. It took about 5 hours from Parap including a stop for lunch. About 1 hour 30 from Mary river ranger station although you wouldn’t think so. The walks aren’t signposted very well so make sure you read the map. Fires are allowed. Collect firewood on the way though it shouldn’t be an issue. Permits only. The old fashioned smelly long drop toilets. Not too bad of a camp site, definitely something to do if you’ve seen most of Kakadu.

Overnighter at Jarrangbarnmi / Koolpin

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Seeing Jarrangbarnmi (which used to be called Koolpin Gorge) was at the top of my list of things that I wanted to see up here. It was cancelled on us once before, because they couldn’t remove a croc. And all the permits were booked out the last time we tried to go. We decided to book the permits for one night on Saturday and Sunday. It was nearly 5 hours from Darwin, but it was worth it.


That rock is much higher than it looks in the photo

We got there, set up, then went to have a look at the river. It was amazingly clear. There was no swimming here because of possible crocodiles, but it was nice to see. The only thing that irked me a little about the campsite was the massive section reserved for ‘tour groups only’  which is fine, except there weren’t any. Meanwhile the other permit holders were forced to set up next to each other. We had run out of time to do the walk to the Gorge, so we just had a few drinks, watched the sunset, set the fire up and had dinner. Later that night we experienced this strange sensation I had not felt since being in Victoria… I remember it was called… cold?


With beanies by the fire

The next morning we packed up and headed to the Gorge itself. The walk… is… not very well signposted. It would be, if you decided to read the map that you were given. But since we had been down to river and there was a big sign about the walk, and a well worn trail, I assumed that was the starting place. Maps are stupid anyway. After about an hour we hit a trail marker, which meant that
a) There were trail markers, and
b) We had not been on the trail

After that we got to the pink pool, the smaller and easier one to get to. After our long walk across a lot of rocks we decided to swim and eat here before moving to the black pool upstream. We were the only ones around which makes things that much better. We had a long swim involving jumping off some rocks, and just generally lay around. Claire was having some trying to take photos of me jumping off the rocks. She was finding it hard to time which meant I probably did it twenty times in a row. It was pretty funny, and of course, a lot of fun!

I went for a walk to check out the black pool. It was amazing, far larger than I thought it would be. I sort of regretted having spent the day in the pink pool, but the way that I figure, it gives me an excuse to go back.


The black pool

On the way back going across the correct track markets, it took about 15 minutes. Whoops. Otherwise everything went well, the new car suspension was fine, I used the roof rack for gathering a large amount of firewood and that worked well. It was great to get away, even if it was for the night, and now I’ve been to all the swimming spots in Kakadu.