Entry 5 – 14th to 29th August. Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory.
After two weeks at Edith Falls with limited phone/internet access we decided to head up the road to the small town of Adelaide River, where we primarily planned to catch up with our last month of electronic ‘stuff!’
In normal driving conditions, one needs to on the alert to identify any possible road hazards. One of those big hazards in the outback are the road trains. We were very glad this big one managed to stop as it did feel like our eyes were popping out as it slid to a stop with a dust cloud obliterating our view of the road ahead.
We did appreciate having phone/internet access whilst at Adelaide River, spending a lot of time attending to correspondence, getting our daily affairs in order, including uploading our previous blog edition.
Adelaide River has an interesting World War Two Memorial and we visited the nearby Robin Falls. After two nights staying at the Adelaide River show grounds, we rose early to view the morning sunrise with the grounds surrounded by foggy conditions.
Our next planned destination we aimed to arrive around 9.30 am (about 110-kilometre drive) to coincide with the departure of the weekend camping crowd, hoping to enhance our opportunity for obtaining a suitable camp site at Litchfield National Park in a designated camping area. There are individual numbered camp sites and your only option is to set camp in any empty camp site available on your arrival. This turned out to be good strategy as we had a selection of about 10 different sites. It is very pleasing to obtain a camp site in a popular campground like Litchfield National Park and even more satisfying to get one suitable for our solar needs as we did in this instance.
The day time temperatures were now hovering around the 35 C degree mark indicating the approach of the tropical wet season with an increase of daily temperatures accompanied by an escalation of humid conditions. The physical activity of setting up camp in these hot conditions was exhausting on our bodies where in this instance around the midway mark it was appropriate to take a break and immerse our bodies in the nearby cooling waters of Wangi Falls. Returning to complete our camp assembly (setting up for an extended stay) with a return to the falls waters on the completion of setting our camp, with our hot sweaty bodies appreciating the coolness once again.
Wangi Falls flows in the middle of a beautiful surroundings with comfortable temperature swimming waters. We would partake in several dips each day, just to cool off. With some visits for an extended period where we would happily chatter with other cheerful people floating about in the calming waters. It was a most delightful environment.
The below pictures show Wangi Falls setting with Mary enjoying the spray of the main falls.
And Steve also enjoying the falls pool all to himself, a rare occurrence. He did take the short-cut back into the water, performing a good belly flop and paying for his misadventure with a sore body.
It quickly became a daily cycle, regularly immersing our bodies in the fall’s waters, between resting up at camp. Thus, it took quite a challenge at the fourth-day mark to pry our bodies away from the falls waters to participate in the Wangi Falls circuit walk, starting and finishing near the fall’s waters.
Our home state of South Australia has many very hot days each year accompanied with dry conditions. The Northern Territory is closer to the Equator, still with warm daily temperatures around the 30 C mark but is subject to a much higher annual rainfall, creating very humid conditions, making it harder for the human bodies to cope. June to August in the Northern Territory is prime weather time with comfortable daily temperatures without the humidity. It was reiterated the wet season was arriving early with a seven-day weather forecast showing four days in a row with predicted temperatures at 38 C.
The Wangi Falls lakeside waters became a daily pleasurable addictive experience. It was getting harder to pry ourselves away from the fall’s waters for longer than an hour or so. It needed some form of incentive and one of those days we had some additional assistance from a special couple we had met whilst at Edith Falls whom had camped in the freshly vacated site alongside of us. We accompanied Petra and Jeff for a bit of an outing about 10 kilometres down the road where we experienced working an old tin mine with Steve and Jeff both trying their hand at some tin mining.
We also walked along the Walkers Creek track, viewing some of its many walk in camp sites, each with their own individual swim hole. The predicted hot daily temperatures were every bit of the word, ‘hot.’ We stopped at (empty) camp site 3, jumping into the crystal-clear waters of Walkers Creek for a most pleasant cool down and some frolicking. A bit further along at site 6 we repeated our water activities all over again. It was a most enjoyable day of activity and we were all a bit weary at the days end.
It was exceptionally nice for Petra to take some photographs showing the two of us together, enjoying the wonderful waters at Wangi Falls.
Another day we spent time at Buley Rock Holes and Florence Falls, located about 20 kilometres down the road.
We had previously visited this location in 2016 with Steve’s brother and his family. Our 2020 visit was disappointing with a much-reduced water flow most likely caused by a lack of rain in the last two seasons. The last seasons rainfall was at 50% of the average annual rainfall and only 25% the previous season. It was still a very special setting but unfortunately adding to our disenchantment was the presence of several bus-loads of school children clogging most of the available water holes. At least we did find an empty spot away from the main areas to cool off.
It was an appeasing experience, each time we returned to Wangi Falls, sitting in its refreshing waters gazing around at its most magnificent setting. For us it was a wonderful soothing atmosphere.
Phone/internet access is limited or lacking in Australia once you are away from populated locations, or should we say, scarce for about 95% of Australia’s land mass. We have always utilized Telstra for our phone provider as they provide superior ‘outback’ coverage in comparison to other telco providers away from populated locations. 2016 Litchfield National Park had no telco reception, but in 2020 there were a couple of Optus hot spots. Ironically for 2020 with a planned overseas holiday we had switched to the Optus network to maintain our phone number at less than 10% the cost of Telstra fees.
It is comforting having contact with family and friends. It was even more appreciated when we were provided with timely notification of Steve’s Dad’s being hospitalised for a medical condition.
We had decided to spend time in Darwin, the capital city for the Northern Territory, located up the road a bit. We departed Litchfield National Park a few days earlier than planned, to obtain good telco communications to monitor our home front family activities.
After 10 nights camped at Wangi Fall’s we farewelled its beautiful setting and magnificent surrounds.
Ironically several locations were closed the following day at Litchfield National Park for an extended period of time due to catastrophic fire conditions which would have meant the activation of our bushfire safety plan to get the heck out of there.
We based ourselves at a caravan park in Darwin where we enjoyed the comforts provided by a power supply with our rarely utilized air conditioner providing a cool environment in the confinements of our caravan.
We were kept regularly informed by Steve’s Mother and sister about his Dad’s progress, eventually having a pacemaker attached to his heart. Thankfully we have a good supportive family, which makes a stressful situation for Dad much easier.
Where to next? Let’s think on that for now.
