21 - Litchfield National Park continues.

21 – July 2016 - 27/7/16

Continuing our Litchfield N.P. experience we walked the Greenant Creek trail to Tjaetaba Falls and thoroughly enjoyed a refreshing dip and spa at the top of the falls.

An invigorating massage

Buley Rockhole - where the waters cascade along a rocky bottom with intermittent holes spaced out in the rock creating pools of water where you can immerse your bodies into these pools. It looked fabulous and was well patronised with swarms of people.

Plenty of mermaids along the cascades

Nearby was Florence Falls which was a mini version of Wangi Falls in a great setting and also swamped with people.

Base of Florence Falls. Not sure if the fella on the left is old enough for that. The guy on the right is obviously expecting a mishap and then there is innocent Mary between them.

The Shady Creek Trail walk from Florence Falls was a beautiful experience with the background sound of running water along the walking trail in amongst the Monsoon Forest along a level slate paved path.

  

The Lost City was a group of sand stone pillars publicised as reminiscent of ruins from a long lost civilisation. It was an outing but didn’t seem overly impressive to us.

We had been considering travelling through the isolated Limmen National Park located about 275 kilometres south east of Katherine which also had a section called the lost city and we had been wavering whether it was worth the several hundred kilometres of dirt road involved travelling through this National Park after viewing Litchfield N.P. version of a similar feature. A conversation with one of the local rangers revealed he had previously been stationed at Limmen N.P. and that Limmen N.P. lost city was magnificent, well worth the effort and made the Litchfield N.P. lost city look insignificant. So it looked like we would be exploring Limmen N.P. after all.

Tolmer Falls can be observed at a distance from a viewing platform which looked ok but you were unable to get up close and personal with the fall to get the feel of its grandeur.

Tolmer Falls viewing platform

In anticipation of some extended time spent travelling through isolated remote areas Steve got under the caravan for a cursory visual inspection and found a broken brake wire at one of the wheels. He didn’t procrastinate about it, just quietly prepared his required tools and it was all fixed within a couple of hours once the issue had been identified. Thank goodness for the soldering iron, now part of our tool kit.

One morning 45 minutes before sunrise a crow woke us up doing what crows do, making a high pitched uk-uk-uk-uk outside our bedroom window that went on and on. We had attended a ranger talk a few days previously and they mentioned the bird life was exceptional at Tabletop Swamp, so we made the 20 minute drive to the swamp arriving just before the appearance of the sun. It was a great setting but we only saw one duck in the distance on the water. Speaking with someone who had been camped there overnight (no camping permitted) showed that there had also been no evidence of bird life the previous evening.

The magnetic termite mounds were quite special to view, nothing like any other termite mounds we’ve seen in the country side.

Picture to come

Steve’s brother Phillip with wife Keryn, kids Cody, Jemma and Logan were experiencing their first extended Australian road trip leaving from South Aussie travelling up the centre of Australia to Darwin then planning to travel back down around Western Australia and we all just happened to be in the same location of Australia at the same time. Our neighbours at the campground in Litchfield N.P. left the morning corresponding with the arrival of Phil with caravan in tow about half an hour later.

Our site with Phil alongside

It was an exciting time catching up with one another. We did heaps together, swimming, kicked the football, shared meals, talked lots and explored Litchfield National Park.

The 7 of us at Buley Rock Hole

For us Litchfield National Park was a beautiful picturesque location which in turn created a great atmosphere with plenty of smiling happy people wherever you were in the park. We could have easily stayed longer but there were still other locations to explore in the Northern Territory and the fuel supply in our pantry was looking very bare.

After 19 nights at Litchfield National Park we headed back to Darwin to restock our supplies.

Our plans were to next explore Kakadu National Park.

P.S. Due to no phone / internet reception at Litchfield N.P. we hadn’t been monitoring our electronic correspondence. For those who have been kind enough to add a comment to this record of our Aussie travels we have added a thankyou comment.