Thread: New D697s fitted

Uranium Development & Prospecting Co

Originally Posted by Narangga

I have heard of the South Alligator Falls before but didn't know of their location.

There is no ranger at Gunlom - just a campsite manager employed under contract.

Some have heard of UDP though - but not many know what the acronym stands for

You would have driven right past the South Alligator Falls. They are about halfway between where you crossed the river and the Gunlom camping area. There used to be a sharp turn in the road - just behind that (on the escarpment side of the road) there was a collection of old tin buildings which, last time I was there, were very much overgrown and difficult to see unless you knew they were there. This was the crusher / mill for the old South Alligator gold mine - the mine itself was an almost horizontal shaft into the escarpment. Behind the crusher / mill buildings, there is a series of about 5 or 6 rockholes stepping down the escarpment - the falls between these are the South Alligator Falls. The mining company bulldozed an "access" road up the side of the rockholes in the late 1960's to gain access to the top of the escarpment. This ruined the rockholes and falls for many years, and people stopped going there. I went in there for a look a few years ago (the whole area is completely overgrown now and it was not easy to get in there and find my bearings). Nature has pretty much taken over and returned things to much as they were, and there is little evidence of the "access" ramp any more, unless you know what you are looking for.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Uranium Development & Prospecting Co

Close .................. it stood for "Uranium Development Project". The company which held the leases for many years (and who my father worked for) was "United Uranium NL".

UDP Falls (as I knew it) featured as the last scene filmed in Australia in the original Crocodile Dundee movie - where Hogan was about to get into her pants when his mate turned up and interrupted proceedings. In this movie, the location was called "Waterfall Creek" (I think) - the name stuck for a while as the tree huggers hated the name UDP (once someone had explained to them what it actually stood for), until the trend of re-naming all of the tourist spots in the NT with Aboriginal names gained popularity, and the name "Gunlom" was adopted. I had never heard the name "Gunlom" when I grew up around there as a kid - not even amongst the Aboriginal kids I went to school with, and who I used to go out there swimming and fishing with on a regular basis.

There are known gold, platinum and uranium deposits all the way along that escarpment. The old mining township of El-Sharana is very close, and Coronation Hill is only just the other side of El-Sharana. They even exposed very high grade native uranium when they carved the "access" ramp up the side of the South Alligator rockholes - but decided not to mine it as they would have "destroyed" the rockholes by doing so.

According to gov records.... By the time UU was in there it was already named and was the base campsite for UDPCo before the 2 other companies UU and SAU were in the area.

Regardless it's an interesting piece of history.

Originally Posted by BMKal

Close .................. it stood for "Uranium Development Project".

That's what I knew it as from when I arrived in the early 80s, but as you say Tombie some interesting history.

There are still some buildings near the T Junction on the way in (left to Gunlom, right to Gimbat/Coronation Hill).

Originally Posted by Narangga

That's what I knew it as from when I arrived in the early 80s, but as you say Tombie some interesting history.

There are still some buildings near the T Junction on the way in (left to Gunlom, right to Gimbat/Coronation Hill).

That would be the remains of El-Sharana. It was very close to the T junction. A little bit further up the road (right) - there was a circular "loop" road off to the left with a few reasonably "modern" transportable houses around it last time I was in the area. I believe that was the exploration camp for Coronation Hill (or so I was told in the Pine Creek pub.

As a kid, I learnt to drive in this area in a Series 2 Land Rover (my father's work ute - the family car was an Austin Freeway wagon). We used to spend a lot of time out along the escarpment - long time before "Kakadu" existed.

Damn, I now wish we had a few more days in Kakadu to get down to Gunlom and have a look around. Might think about it on way back down from Darwin.

Sent from my SM-G920I using AULRO mobile app

Originally Posted by laughto

Damn, I now wish we had a few more days in Kakadu to get down to Gunlom and have a look around. Might think about it on way back down from Darwin.

Sent from my SM-G920I using AULRO mobile app

Road in is rough but not horrendous. Still a trickle over the falls and water was a reasonable level.