Aspiring traveller seeks professional experience

It’s often the places that you don’t have any expectations about that amaze you as you’re travelling. Embarking on a 2-week road trip through the Australian outback with my buddy Anthony, heading south from Darwin to Adelaide, I was using various resources as a basic guide for what I should be expected to encounter along the way. The popular sights, when one mentions the ‘outback’ were inevitable - long straight roads that disappear beyond the horizon, vast red dusty landscapes in every direction, and of course the big red rock that is Uluru. Arriving at Leilyn (Edith Falls) however, was a pleasant surprise. Turning off the Stuart Highway approximately 40km north of the town of Katherine takes you down a smaller sealed road, past the official Nitmiluk National Park entry sign, to a car park where it’s then a short and easy 1.5km trek along the Leilyn walk to the Upper Pools.

Arriving here, Anthony and I were blown away by the sheer natural beauty before our eyes. A large rapidly flowing waterfall poured over the edges of a high rock face, plunging into a series of natural pools that had formed as a result of the falls. We wasted no time in taking a dip into the swimmable waters and opting for a cool refreshing shower under the waterfall, only to discover that the rocks here were temptingly climbable. We made our way up this viewable section of Edith Falls, grappling onto which parts we could to hitch ourselves up, and to our wonder, came across a series of different levels of the waterfall that were otherwise hidden, each of which had carved out their own small baths into the rocks. We climbed further up past these levels and discovered a long river section with not another soul brave or adventurous enough to venture as far as we had. We jumped into the river, and curiously swam further to see what was behind each corner, along the way being met by giant lizards relaxing on their own individual rocks as if they had come out of the water for a sunbathe. Being here was a perfect moment with just Mother Nature as our company, a feeling that the true adventurer regularly seeks when wanting to get off the beaten track and away from busy society. It was a courageous jump back down, alongside the flowing water, which brought us splashing back into the main pool before trekking back and reflecting on the hidden gem we had just encountered.