Jatbula Trail Wrap Up

It is interesting that what is probably the hardest walk to get a ticket for in Australia is also one that not many people have heard of. Most people I talk to nod along knowingly when I have mentioned walks like the Larapinta Trail and the Overland Track, but when you mention the Jatbula Trail, more often than not, their face turns blank and they want to clarify "What is that one? Jack Buller?". But no, not to be confused with Sydney Swans key forward, the Jatbula Trail is a 6-day, 62km walk near Katherine, NT, that starts at Nitmuluk Gorge and finishes at Leliyn.

So why is it so difficult to get tickets for this walk? The tropical Katherine climate means the main season for the walk is only a window of 4 months of the year (June to September) before the heat and the rain become prohibitive. Additionally, there are only 15 tickets available to start the walk each day (compare this with the also tough to book Overland Track, which allows 34 walkers to start each day). On top of this, a 10-12 person champagne walk (a guided group walk) starts every 3-4 days, with those tickets being pre-reserved but included in the daily 15 (i.e. some days only 3-5 tickets are available). All these factors combine to mean that Jatbula is one pretty exclusive walk to get a permit for. It is the hikers version of a Taylor Swift concert.

I would like to think that I am pretty experienced when it comes to getting tickets to things. I have a long and varied resume, with career highlights including:

• Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto Tour, 2012
• Various Splendour in the Grasses and Falls Festivals, 2016-2022
• Sydney Swans vs. Collingwood, Preliminary Final, 2022
• Quintonil, Friday night dinner reservation, 2019

It was clear that my work was going to be cut out for me on that Tuesday morning back in February when tickets came on sale for the season. We were running an inter-state-territory strategy with Georgia logging on from Alice Springs and I from Sydney. At work, I booked the boardroom, the meeting room I believe has the fastest internet speeds in the office, for a 'very important meeting'. The rumours were true, the tickets moved fast. 10:30am came around and by 10:31, the season was sold out, including 2 tickets with our names on them for our preferred mid-June start date.

Anatomy of a walk

On paper the Jatbula Trail is fairly calm. 62km of walking across 6 days, for an average of about 10km of walking each day, and only 900m of elevation gain across the entire walk (for a point of comparison, the Larapinta had over 7,000m elevation gain). At the walker briefing run by a Nitmiluk National Park Ranger prior to the start of the walk, it was explained to us that Jawoyn people have travelled on trails similar to this one, in this same part of country for thousands of years. The trail was designed to be a slower walk, so that time in nature and time spent relaxing on trail could be enjoyed.

This design was realised early into the walk for us. Just over an hour into the first day, we had arrived at the first swimming spot of the walk, Northern Rockhole. This was a big waterhole, surrounded by sandstone cliffs with a waterfall. Checking the AllTrails map, we had just about completed half of the distance for day 1, and it had just barely gone 10am. So we settled in for a swim, snack, coffee and laze in the sun for a few hours.

Each campsite on the trail is located next to a swimming hole, cascade, waterfall etc. which created a really nice rhythm of getting up early to start walking in the cool each day, arriving at camp before lunch and then spending the afternoon resting at camp by another beautiful, relaxing body of water.

Creature comforts

The relatively shorter distances and flatter walking each day meant that slightly heavier and more discretional items could be added into our packs to enhance the walk. I think we were still a little bit in the Larapinta ultralight count every gram headspace, so we didn't go quite as luxe as we perhaps could have. Other walkers in our group carried things like fresh fruit and veggies, pool noodles, small camping chairs and fairy lights. The big ticket items that we brought along were:

• An Aeropress and beans - gone were the days of nescafe sachets and instant coffee.
• A couple bottles of wine - decanted into a bladder, there was no regrets having an additional 1.5L to carry, this was a really nice addition to dinner each night.

• Hammocks - Perhaps the biggest upgrade to the walk, they were such a comfortable way to kick back by the water at camp each afternoon.

Memories and Highlights

While the 15 permit a day limit makes it difficult to get tickets, I think the small group size is one of the more special things about the walk. There is space at the swimming spots for each of the groups to spread out. You feel like you are on your own and get to experience a pristine, remote bit of nature very slowly, in a way that I found a lot calmer than locations that are drive-in or day-hike accessible. This is something that we reflected a few times on, on both of the hikes over the past few weeks. It is hard to not talk about what I enjoy most about multi-day hiking without the language sounding gatekeep-y or too exclusionary. But there just seems to be this repeated feeling that the most rewarding feeling, or the biggest sense of satisfaction comes when things have been a bit hard, and you have had to work a bit, and get out of your comfort zone a little bit to get there. I promise I am not trying to gatekeep multi-day walking, I will gladly come on a walk with anyone! or just chew your ear off about where to go, what to pack (love talking gear) or what to eat!

The small group size also meant that we got to know our little walking crew as the trip went on. Shout outs to Erin and Oscar from Melbourne who got me and Georgia playing 500 with them over a couple of afternoons, I always forget how fun that card game is, and it was a highlight for me to sit at camp on makeshift rock tables with new friends and play a few rounds. Similarly, Georgia and I played chess by the water on a couple of afternoons, I haven't played in ages and it was fun waking up that part of the brain again too.

Just for posterity and completeness, a couple of notes about my two favourite campsites of the walk:

Night 2 - Crystal Falls
Georgia and I were up early on day 2 and as a result were the first of our group to arrive at the Crystal Falls campsite. 10 new tent platforms had been constructed here recently, and so we had free reign to pick the best ones. Criteria that was considered in selecting the optimal site included things like how close to the water it was, the levels of shade that were offered, the robustness of nearby trees for attaching hammocks. Admittedly there wasn't really a bad tent platform at the whole site, but we were happy with our choice.

Crystal Falls was an approximately 30m wide, slowly flowing river. Where the camp was, large flat rocks stuck out from the water, creating little sections of faster flowing rapids in the water, and providing great spots on the rocks to sit or lay down. We spent the afternoon cycling between laying in hammocks and laying on these rocks in the middle of the river.

Night 4 - Sandy Camp
This was another shady, waterfront camp spot. The swimming spot at this camp was a large calm water hole, with a small waterfall cascade leading into it upstream. Prime hammock positioning here, with it almost hanging half over the water. The birdlife at this camp seemed to be particularly active, with many different birds gliding over and feeding in the waterhole throughout the afternoon.

It was particularly satisfying to arrive at this camp, as it was at the end of the longest day of walking on the trail (17km). The 200mm of rain that fell earlier in May meant that sections of the trail were pretty wet and marshy. With about 3km of walking to go, we embraced the wet, got the shoes underwater and trudged straight through all mud and water crossings we encountered, instead of trying to find higher paths, rocks and tree roots to go around. Rolling into camp and getting the squelchy shoes off and jumping in the water for a swim was a nice feeling at the end of this day of walking.

Conclusion

What kind of subheading is this? I will break out of consultant report writing mode soon I hope. Anyway, the Jatbula Trail was a seriously great walk. It was so relaxing, and really beautiful in a way that is different to a lot of the other walking I have done, where the time at camp is where a lot of the magic and beauty is. Determined to get in onto more people's radar, I would highly recommend it, I think there's something in it for all experience levels. With all the things that you can see between Darwin and Nitmuluk (Kakadu, Litchfield, Leliyn, Nitmuluk George, Mataranka), it would also work as a great part of a 2-week top end road trip, similar to how people do a 2 week trip of Tasmania and include the Overland Track. Makes you think!