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| Edith River Crossing, our first chance for a swim today. |
Our fourth day on the Jatbula Trail would be our longest, today we walked away from the catchment of Seventeen Mile Creek and into the catchment of the Edith River. With a 16.5 kilometre day infront of us we were once again packed up and on the trail fairly early. The first part of today had us climbing very gently across shallow valleys, in spots today we were pushing through cane grass that was well over head height, occasionally breaking out into the open at a mud bath that had obviously been a water buffalo wallow. Thankfully there were no water buffalo's around today as it wouldn't have been an optimum outcome bursting through head high grass and being confronted by a startled, pissed off water buffalo.
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| Our day started off with a bit of rough walking. |
Despite the rough conditions we made pretty good time as we made our way across the waterless 11 kilometres section to the Edith River. Once at the Edith River Crossing it was once again time to pull up stumps for awhile and have a swim. You can actually camp here but Sandy Camp Pool is a much nicer spot, Edith River Crossing camp is pretty rocky and the river dries out late in the dry season. Today though there was plenty of water to enjoy and we enjoyed an early lunch while we drip dried after our swim.
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Edith River Crossing
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| There was plenty of water at Edith River Crossing today, but late in the dry season it can more or less dry out. |
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Basically for the rest of our walk on the Jatbula Trail we would be more or less be following the Edith River all the way down to Leliyn. Our afternoons route crossed the river a couple of times on its meandering journey downstream, along here we had a first on the walk as well, yes for the first time on the stroll I managed to pass by a waterhole without stripping off and jumping in! Although to be fair we were heading to the huge Sandy Camp Waterhole so the narrow Channel Waterhole suffered a bit from the comparison.
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| I managed to walk past Channel Waterhole without stripping off and jumping in. |
Arriving at the very large Sandy Camp Waterhole we weren't disappointed, this is everything you'd expect from a top end water hole, even coming complete with it's own population of freshwater crocodiles! There was a choice here of swimming in the main pool which had a submerged sand bank that led out into the deep water of the pool or using one of the many little spa baths where the Edith River was cascading down into the main pool. Talk about hard decisions! We pitched the tent in a grove of trees on the sand beside the waterhole but dragged all our cooking gear up onto and open rocky area to cook dinner and watch the sun go down, after what had been another beautiful day.
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Our kitchen on the rocks above Sandy Camp Waterhole.
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| Another day drawing to it's close at Sandy Camp Waterhole. |
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The Dirt.
We walked 16.5 kilometres on today's journey on what I'd class as a medium grade days walk. The main issue today was the head high grass that we were sometimes pushing through, not only was this hot and uncomfortable walking that required a close eye on the navigation but there was also the ever present danger of suddenly coming face to face with a water buffalo. In the four days since leaving Nitmiluk we had walked 52.3 kilometres so far.
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