Gagadju Adventure Tour

When you visit Kakadu National Park, you hear that two of the main attractions are Jim Jim and Twin Falls. However, you can't get there during the wet season because the roads are flooded, and no tours were visiting the area while we were there (the end of the dry season), because it was too hot. In order to drive on the road to the waterfalls yourself, you need 4WD along with a snorkel on your vehicle. We didn't have either. We heard that neither waterfall had a lot of water running over it anyway.


So we decided to do a day-long tour with Gagudju Adventure tours, because their 4WD vehicle would be able to take us to some other cool waterfall spots in the park. We met up with our driver and the other passengers in the morning, boarded the truck/bus thing, and were on our way. The first stop was Maguk, also known as Barramundi Gorge. You have to do a short hike to get to the waterfall, but the green plants everywhere and rock scrambles make it beautiful and fun.

After the hike, you reach Maguk Falls. It's not a huge waterfall, but the pool around it is great for a swim. We hung out here for awhile, just soaking in the pool, playing under the waterfall, and climbing the rocks.

After Maguk, we stopped on the side of the road and got out to take pictures with a large termite mound. You see these things everywhere in the park; some are really small and some are huge. I'll talk more about those when I get to my Litchfield post. But you can get an idea of the size by seeing how tall it is compared to me (I'm 5'8").

We had lunch at the park near Gunlom Falls. The Northern Territory is full of flies, and they buzz around your head and drive you crazy. We eventually invested in fly nets (you'll see those in later posts), but here's Zack using his cooling scarf as a makeshift fly swatter by creating a swinging arc to protect his head!

Gunlom Falls is where part of Crocodile Dundee was filmed. The scene where he spears the barramundi was shot on the banks of this plunge pool. We spent some more time swimming and hanging out here before heading back to Gagudju Lodge for a cold cider and beer. It was a pretty good day, though there was a lot of driving involved (Kakadu National Park is HUGE), and our guide didn't let us know that we could have hiked to the top of both waterfalls and had some good views and more plunge pools to enjoy. We probably should have just rented a 4WD vehicle and gone to these places ourselves, but oh well. I really can't complain when I spent my day swimming under waterfalls!

Sydney's Sights on 11-11-11

Where were you at 11am on 11/11/11?

Another post written by my mom...

Our Sydney hotel was quite a treat. Aubree got us a sweet deal with free breakfast every morning and late checkout on our last day. On the first morning, the scrambled eggs, potato gems (tater tots), bacon (thin slices of ham), sausage, spaghetti and baked beans (yeah, we didn’t get that either), assorted cereals, muffins and pastries, yogurt, and hot cocoa, coffee, and juices was a delicious, filling way to start the day. By the fourth morning, the meal had become quite mundane and the most coveted item seemed to be the large moist chocolate chip muffins, two of which were delivered to Aubree and Morgan’s door on the last day since they decided to sleep in and skip breakfast.

Dad and Mom at Archibald Fountain.

Going to the lobby each day was a multicultural event; it was not uncommon to see groups of people from every nation and to hear many languages spoken – a great place to people watch. Have I mentioned our fun with the elevators? A couple of us, and me once for five minutes, were stuck on the elevator because our key card did not allow us to choose a floor or to even open the door so we would have to sit there until another hotel guest happened along and let us out.

Hyde Park greenery

Enough about the hotel – on to discovering Sydney! We had been so busy discovering all things Australian that we often forgot what day it was, but today we were quickly reminded. We began our walk to see the Sydney sights on this beautiful warm day by walking among the green trees, plants and well-manicured bushes in Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens. We kept seeing pockets of well-dressed people and then bride and groom couples and quickly realized that it was a special day, 11-11-11! By the end of the day, we had seen at least twelve (or maybe 11!) couples tying the knot on a date even the most forgetful will remember.

Justin's favorite color is yellow, so we made him pose with these flowers.

We walked along the cove, passing Mrs. Macquarie’s chair, named for an English governor’s wife who used to enjoy the view from her “seat” carved out of rock.

The Dills (with one former Dill-me!).

And then we saw it, the iconic Sydney Opera House! It was spectacular!

Morgan and I amused other tourists while trying to get this shot.

After several pictures to capture the moment, we walked to the Sydney Opera House to begin our tour. The tour was informative and interesting; we learned about the original architect’s dream and the engineers’ struggles to bring it to reality. The project was supposed to take three years and $7 million to complete but it took 16 years and $102 million and by then, the architect had left the project and never got to see the finished masterpiece.

Inside the Sydney Opera House during the tour.

We toured the main concert hall, in which they were doing a sound check for a band that was playing that night. The acoustics were incredible, and we were informed that they could be adjusted depending on the performer or band. As an example, the tour guide said that if Michael Buble were to perform, it would cost him $30,000 to rent the hall for the night – we didn’t think that was very expensive at all (ha). In the opera theatre, we saw ballet dancers rehearsing. There are three smaller drama theatres for plays, one of which is funded by Cate Blanchett and her husband.

Cindy jumps for joy at the Opera House.

We were so impressed by the ambiance that Ray, Cindy, Morgan, and I came back in the evening to see the Australian Ballet Company’s performance of The Merry Widow. The orchestra’s music and ballerinas' costumes were breathtaking, and the dancing was exquisite; we were so happy we were able to experience it all.

After lunch outside the Opera House, we walked through Circular Quay (pronounced key), a wharf surrounded by tourist shops, hotels, and restaurants. On our way to the Harbour Bridge, we passed through The Rocks, Sydney’s old town quarter where colonial and maritime history is preserved, and we shopped in several unique shops. The famous Harbour Bridge was humungous and “suicide proof”; it was hard to get good pictures of the Sydney Opera House because of all the fencing and wires.

To add a little excitement to our afternoon, we donned ponchos and sped around the Sydney Harbour in a jet boat doing several 360-degree turns, all of which drenched us, despite our protection. With fast speeds and a rock music soundtrack, it was a fun way to see the Harbour, and we were glad for the warm Sydney sunshine to dry our clothes after the ride.

Groupon-type deals always come out for these rides-I'd highly recommend it!

Dinner was at a fast food chain called Pie Face, which featured a vast assortment of meat pies as well as dessert pies. It was so much fun for each of us to choose which small pies we wanted! We decided that we needed to buy into this franchise and bring this chain of restaurants to the United States. Anyone want in on our investment? What a thrilling first day in Sydney! -Sue

The girls demonstrate the hilarious Sydney Barbie pose!