Kakadu rock art and Jim Jim Falls

We saw so many dazzling sights on this trip across the Red Centre of Australia I have decided to break it down into bite sized chunks so that each special thing gets a space in a blog entry and those reading don't give up the will to live having to wade through a huge long monolog!

So this one is about the oldest rock art in the world and the oldest civilization on the planet. You met Graham in the last blog, well 50,000 years ago some of his ancestors were painting these pictures, the art was used to teach new generations and to record history (we think!)

These are located in Ubirr on the east side of Kakadu park, near the stunning lookout over the Narab floodplain.

 This one is a snapping turtle, showing the food/fat stores under the shell.

 

We then climbed the plateau and had a superb view across the whole area that floods every year, so the roads have to be remade each dry season.

It was a shame we did not get to see sunset over this beautiful land.

We also had an exciting drive to Jim Jim falls where we had a 'rock hopping' walk into the waterfall swimming area. The water was perishingly cold as the canyon doesn't get much sunshine.

Just beautiful. Although this is the only place we saw a live snake (or rather several all intertwined - yuck!), I'm just glad it was after we had been swimming!