Day 26 - Mataranka to Kakadu (309km 3h45m)

We enjoyed our Johnny cakes and puff-da-loons again for breakfast and then got ready to leave. It was sad to say goodbye to the 2 travelling families but we hope to catch up along the road.

We left at 10am and our first stop was Katherine to fill up the car and get groceries. We were expecting it to be a long wait in the supermarket but we were lucky to be out quickly.

Our next stop was Mary River Roadhouse to purchase our pass for Kakadu however they no longer sell them. So the lady gave us a map and showed us where to buy one and we were on our way to Kakadu.

It was exciting when we passed through the gates and then it was a long drive to our campsite. We finally arrived at our campsite called Gungurul at 2:45pm. We set-up, had lunch and then had an issue with the fridge running off gas so we thought we were going to have to drive back to Mary River Roadhouse but instead we got out the manuals and a man staying in the caravan next to us helped us and we switched it to gas manually.

By this stage we were all very tired and grumpy and desperate for a swim so off to Maguk (or barramundi gorge) we went. It’s a bit of a walk in first on sand, then a boardwalk and then lots of rocks. We finally came to the end of the gorge and it’s beautiful. We were quickly in the water and we were instantly refreshed. Bronte & I were a bit scared of crocodiles but we were brave and continued with the boys over to the waterfall. Bronte got over her fear very quickly and before long was jumping off the rocks into the water. Josh did a few jumps but he was more interested trying to catch the little frogs that were on the rocks.

It is such a beautiful spot and a big mass of water. The boys were snorkelling and looking at the fish.

We eventually hopped out as the sun was going down and we still had to walk back to the car and drive back to our campsite.

We had dinner and then an early night. The mozzies are pretty bad and it’s very hot!