The afternoon of Day 2 was interesting. We had read in our trail guide "be prepared to get your feet wet as there are several creek crossings and swampy sections". We were indeed prepared to get our feet wet in the creeks but made valiant efforts to bypass the swamps. This involved lots of swinging from branches, balancing on precarious logs and making leaps of faith from one distant stone or tree to another. At one point I slipped into a swamp and the swamp in turn slipped into my boots, where it remained for the rest of the trip. Just when we thought we were in the clear, we reached this:
We spent a good while looking for the path only to discover that there wasn't one. (The next marker is on the tree on the far right of the picture.) For some reason, this struck us as hilarious. Because my boots were already soaked so I lost no time wading through this knee deep swamp. Luke tried to find a way round and made a remarkably good stab at it, finally falling in with only a couple of meters to go. In his attempts he had deviated so far from the markers that he had to scramble up a bank and through think patches of a thorny plant called hairy mary which hooks into whatever packs, clothing or skin happen to pass its way. We remained in surprisingly good spirits throughout and I earned some kudos points with Luke for not having 'broken' when, he claimed, "most girls would break".
Our trail guide claimed the walk that day would take six hours. Since we had completed yesterday's walk in under the suggested time, we'd taken a detour this morning to see an extra bay, but still expected to reach the next campsite in about six hours. We had, however, been walking at a fairly leisurely pace and taking plenty of breaks. The episode at the swamp set us back further. Six hours after leaving camp this morning it was clear that we were still a fair way off. Luke was not happy. I was faring a little better but would have had no objections to being teleported to the campsite at that point. Thankfully, we found an atmospherically lovely clearing, full of strangely bent trees and misty mountain views (Luke's favourite type of landscape) in which to regroup.
Eight hours after heading out this morning, we finally collapsed into camp. Thankfully, I just about found the energy to make it another twenty minutes up the path, where I was rewarded with a swim in this pool:
Whilst not as spectacular as some of the waterfalls on the Top End trip, I cannot even begin to tell you how gorgeous and refreshing a spot it was for a plunge after such a long day, and all the better for the effort required to get there.
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