Kakadu National Park walking tour: The best walks in Kakadu

But we're here to hike the shorter trails in and around the escarpment, the defining line between the stone country and Kakadu's immense and symbolic floodplains.

On the plains, water rules life, its ebb and flooding flow drawing a host of animal and birdlife to its edges. For walkers, Kakadu's waterfalls and plunge pools have a similar magnetism. To walk here, in this Top End heat, is almost certainly to swim here.

Beginning along the road to popular Gunlom, the Yurmikmik walks delve between lines of foothills to reach a pair of cooling waterfalls. Wild passionfruit grows tangled among the tall speargrass, and green tree ants march along branches, waving angrily as we pass.

In the valley between the hills, we wander through savannah, the open woodland that covers almost 80 per cent of the national park. At a glance, it's a uniform kind of landscape – rampant grassland picketed with trees – but it hides the fact of Kakadu's remarkable biological diversity.

One of only 31 sites in the world inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list for natural and cultural values, Kakadu protects six distinct landforms, from these savannah woodlands to tidal flats and wetlands. Crocodiles cruise among turtles and water monitors, while a third of Australia's bird species have been recorded inside the park. Dry grassland abuts pockets of monsoon rainforest, and baking rocks yield to deep, cooling waterholes such as Motor Car Falls.

Nearing the end of the dry season, these falls are just a dribble, but in almost every other regard Motor Car Falls is one of Kakadu's most enticing waterholes. Enclosed by cliffs on one side, and rainforest on the other, it's a place of deep water and even deeper exploration.

A poolside slab of rock doubles as a diving board and our lunchtime dining table and, across the water from the track, hundreds of butterflies sip at minerals on the rock of a shaded overhang.

From the rock, I dive into the waterhole and swim to the cliffs ... and then into them. At the base of the cliffs, only faintly visible from afar, is a narrow slot nicked into the rock. From the end of the tiny cave, about five metres into the cliffs, sunlight casts a neon-green glow through the water, where fish and tiny shrimps drift about, nibbling occasionally at my toes.

Past Motor Car Falls, the Yurmikmik walks continue deeper into the park to Kurundie Falls. It's a section of trail that sees so little foot traffic that, at times, we're now pushing through the fast-growing speargrass as it consumes the track.

"I've never seen another person at Kurundie Falls," says our guide, Dan Rose, and sure enough, we're alone as we climb through the boulders that crowd the banks of its lower pool.

Were Kurundie Falls not seven kilometres from the nearest car park, it'd be a literal rock star. Enormous boulders choke the stream, creating a pair of plunge pools connected by a waterfall pouring through a narrow chute of rock. Sit under the falls, with water thumping over your shoulders and back, and it's like a day spa in the wilderness.

By the time we return to our vehicle late in the afternoon, we've had two swims and hiked for about five hours, but you don't have to walk all day to find water in Kakadu. There are also short walks into places such as Maguk.

Known also as Barramundi Gorge, Maguk is reached on an easy trail along the banks of a tributary of the South Alligator River – the mighty crocodile soup that flows in its entirety through the national park.

Signs along the trail warn of the presence of crocs, but as we cross a series of rock bars that also serve as natural barriers against crocodiles, any such danger is gone from our minds. Suddenly, there are pools upon pools – a large plunge pool at the base of the waterfall, and a watery ladder of smaller pools above, stepping through the escarpment.

"This is the most magical place in the park at this time of year," Dan says. Lying back by the top of its falls, being warmed from above by the sun and from below by the rock, it's hard to dispute. At least until you travel to Gunlom.

Gunlom campground is one of our two bases for the week, our tents just metres from another plunge pool at the base of arguably Kakadu's most photogenic waterfall.

Even more enticing are the upper pools, another short but steep walk through the escarpment. Laid out like an infinity pool, the waters here stare out over the plains and Kakadu's southern hills. As the sun rolls away on another walking day, the cliff walls glow like a fanned flame, and cool light fills the still-warm valleys far below.

Not all walks in Kakadu focus on water, and one morning we set out across Nourlangie Rock. This outlier of the Arnhem Land plateau looks like a section of the escarpment wandered west, and harbours some of the most accessible of Kakadu's 5000-plus art sites. It's the stone country in microcosm, providing day walkers with a rare look into the land beyond the cliffs.

The 12-kilometre Barrk Sandstone Walk traverses Nourlangie Rock, rising past some of its most imposing cliffs to a summit plateau eroded into a fantasy world of rock.

The track weaves and winds its way between a lost city of sandstone stacks and pillars, pushing eventually through a band of rock to arrive at the cliff edge. Below us, the South Alligator floodplain stretches away seemingly forever, while behind us the Arnhem Land escarpment forms a seam running 400 kilometres through the Top End.

It's arguably the most expansive, widest view of any track in the national park, and yet there's nobody else here because it lacks that one essential Kakadu element: water. And yet it's somehow the better for it, revealing instead the epic scale of the floodplain while granting a manageable glimpse of the intimidating stone country. Swimming can wait for another day.

FIVE OTHER KAKADU WALKS

Jim Jim Falls

A one-kilometre walk to the plunge pool at the base of Kakadu's most famous waterfall. From here, it's a steep climb through the escarpment to the top of the falls.

Gubara Pools

Cross three kilometres of savannah plains to a waterhole tucked into the flanks of Nourlangie Rock – expect to share the pool with a host of fish and water monitors.

Jarrangbarnmi (Koolpin Gorge)

Pass a series of pools and waterfalls through one of southern Kakadu's most spectacular gorges. Access permits are required, with only 40 people allowed into the gorge at a time.

Nawurlandja Lookout

Short climb onto a rocky peak beside Nourlangie Rock, with awesome views of its more famous neighbour and the distant line of the Arnhem Land escarpment.

Jarrangbarnmi to Twin Falls

Classic overnight hike (unmarked, permits required) across the Arnhem Land plateau. For experienced, navigation-savvy walkers only.

TRIP NOTES

MORE INFORMATION

travelnt.com; parksaustralia.gov.au/kakadu

GETTING THERE

Qantas flies to Darwin up to three times daily from Sydney and once daily from Melbourne. See qantas.com.au. Phone 13 13 13. Kakadu is a three-hour drive from Darwin.

SEE+DO

World Expeditions operates a six-day Kakadu Walking Adventure ($2195) trip, covering a number of day hikes in the park and staying in semi-permanent camps at Muirella Park and Gunlom. Trips run from May to October. See worldexpeditions.com.

The writer travelled as a guest of World Expeditions and Tourism NT.