Wallaman Falls

 Kookaburra and I went to Wallaman Falls a few months back in August, it's the highest single drop water fall in Australia.

Driving there I was on the look out for a cassowary, as there were signs up everywhere telling me to look out for them. I'd never seen one before and really wanted to.

Reaching the lookout car park without a single sighting we packed our back pack and headed off to the lookout. 

There were quite a few people taking pictures and admiring the waterfall and view. After taking a few pictures we headed on down to the track that would take us to the bottom of the waterfall.

On the way down we dreaded having to walk back up the steep and long track. The hike down is 1.6km with signs warning at the top that people have died here and have had heat stroke.

We passed quite a few people going up and were surprised by the amount of people doing it in thongs, one person was even barefoot.

We finally made it to the bottom after a long walk. We knew we wanted to go swimming, so after finding a place to change we scrambled over the rocks towards the water.

The first touch of the water made me rethink swimming. It was freezing cold, my legs instantly cramped and I had a moment of panic when the pain hit. After a few seconds however it passed and I was able to move freely. It was still freezing however.

I started swimming towards the waterfall while waiting for Kookaburra as I wanted to stay warm. She soon joined me and we continued on. It grew increasingly harder to draw a full breath the closer I got to the falls and my arms felt sluggish, so rather than risk my health for a photo and bragging rights I turned back. Kookaburra kept going but ended up turning back a few meters from it. 

We hopped out and tried to warm up on the rocks while we completed our traveling challenge. We stayed there for a while but found that we weren't getting any dryer as the spry from the falls was keeping us pretty damp.

A man came along who we had a nice conversation with then we left to head back up.

We were right, the climb back up was torturous, we were very grateful for the benches that we'd passed on the way down. 

We ended up playing leap frog with the guy we'd talked to earlier, as we'd rest awhile and he'd pass us then he'd rest and we'd pass him.

It was slow going and my legs were so tried by the start of it. About half way up I was surprised by a snake crossing the path ahead of me, after taking a few pictures it slithered off and we continued on our way.

Nearing the end I decided that I'd had enough of slowly plodding along and that if my legs were going to hurt while walking why not make them hurt while running at least this way I'd get there faster. So with Kookaburra voicing her disbelief behind me I started jogging the rest of the way.

It really wasn't all that far maybe 100 to 200m but while jogging, I past a group that voiced their admiration of me jogging up the track. Finally making it back to the lookout we took a few more pictures then headed back to the car.

It was a great, exhausting day and unfortunately I didn't see any cassowaries.