My favourite walks in the NT
Last year I spent a lot of time writing and photographing for my new book coming out in a few weeks. Discovering Natural Northern Territory is a 200 page guidebook focusing solely on the natural areas of the NT.
Larapinta Trail - Day 12 - Counts Point to Mt Giles Lookout
Dawn on the top of Count’s Point was incredible - definitely one of my trip highlights. I felt like I was on top of the world! And I really felt like I was on the homeward stretch now - I could see the end in sight!
Larapinta Trail - Introduction - A photographer's hike!
Last year, April 2020, I had planned to hike the Larapinta Trail when COVID-19 hit Australia and the whole country went in to lockdown. I had already left Darwin for Alice Springs, and was in Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park when the chaos fully hit. I was a few days out from my hike start date and was told the trail (and all national parks in Australia), were closed. People were being told to go home and stay home. So, I left Uluru and drove straight home to Darwin in one day. (That’s a long drive! I left Uluru at 5am and ended up arriving home at 1am).
Anyway, long story short, I managed to make the hike happen the following year. My new start date was March 25th 2021. And I am SO glad I was
Jatbula Trail - Part 2
Day 2 was a longer day than the first, travelling across the top of the escarpment. This day ended at Crystal Falls as the campground, although we actually didn't see any "falls" until the walk the following morning….
Jatbula Trail - Part 1
I’ve just returned from a hike in the Katherine region known as the Jatbula trail - a combined photo-trip/remote camping getaway! This walk is the first multi-day bush walk I’ve done in years and the first one my partner had ever done. The first thing I have to say about the Jatbula is that it was AWESOME! We loved it! The walk was really interesting and travelled through a variety of Top End habitats. Maybe we appreciated the varying landscape a little more than an interstate or overseas visitor, as we could really notice the smaller differences in the vegetation and the types of habitat as we were a little more familiar with the area.
We travelled through open woodlands on top of the escarpment, where we saw some amazing open views across hills, cliffs and buttes. There were monsoon pockets, bushfire-burnt regions, 2-metre high grasses, mushy marshy floodplains, amazing rock formations and colours, creek crossings and some of the best waterfalls I’ve seen in the Top End. We saw so many birds too (but thankfully only one snake and no face-to-face encounters with buffalo)!
For anyone considering walking the trail…