Biddlecombe Cascades to Crystal Falls, Jatbula Trail, Nitmiluk National Park - May 2004

We awoke on our second day on the Jatbula Trail to clear blue skies again, something that we would wake up to on every day on this walk. Seeing as we had ticked the relaxed option for this walk we didn't have far to go again today, 11 kilometres would see the walking part of the day over. We still were packed up fairly early though and headed off while the early morning temperatures were in the reasonable range.

There was plenty of the Jawolyn Art to be found today if you explored a little.

Once again today we faithfully followed the blue markers that were hanging from the local flora, most of today's walk followed a bushwalking pad at best, with the verdant regrowth after the wet season crowding the pad for the most part. The route today passed through a fair bit of sandstone country, where if you looked carefully enough you could find many examples of the local Jawoyn People's art work. In between the rocky outcrops we walked across swampy shallow valleys, a lot of which provided water, as well as wetting our boots.

In between the sandstone outcrops the route crossed a few swampy gullies.

Before lunch we started down towards a large creek, this is the creek that feeds Crystal Falls. Once down beside the creek we headed upstream for awhile past a lone long drop until we got to the Crystal Falls campsite. The camp at Crystal Falls is situated on a large water hole in the creek meaning the afternoon was spent floating up and down the water hole with our goggles on, well in between basking on the rocks drip drying anyway. 

The waterhole at Crystal Falls is spectacular.

The Dirt.

We walked 11 kilometres today and didn't do much climbing on this easy days walk. Plenty of time should be left today for exploring the sandstone outcrops looking for indigenous art sites, there are (were?) no signs so you need to explore a little to find them. The waterhole at Crystal Falls makes for great swimming as well, so make sure you get there early enough to chill out there for awhile. In the two days since leaving Nitmiluk we had walked 19.3 kilometres so we weren't really pushing it on this walk.

Relevant Posts.

Day 1, Nitmiluk to Biddlecombe Cascades, Jatbula Trail, Nitmiluk National Park, 2004.

Eighth Gorge, Nitmiluk National Park, 2004.

Darwin, 2006.

Darwin, 2010.