Beautiful Litchfield

Sunday, Territory Day! After a peaceful night, quite cool, we drove a few k's down the road into Litchfield National Park, to Wangi Falls. Well, what a delightful place! Being early, we managed to be the only ones in the beautiful pool, at the bottom of two waterfalls. It's hard work, swimming upstream to get under a waterfall. We really enjoyed the cool, crystal water this morning. (Photo of us in the pool here.) As we were leaving, crowds started to arrive, so we think we were lucky to have the pool to ourselves for a while. The sun gets onto the waterfall and the pool more in the afternoon, so that is probably the most popular time for Wangi Falls (it's "wan-guy", not "wan-jee" as Wangi in NSW is pronounced.)

We then headed down the 4WD track to Tjaynera Falls hoping to find some seclusion at these difficult to get at falls, but the river crossing we encountered was too deep and too murky and too wide to be braved on the day before we are to hand our truck back in, so we decided against it. We visited Tolmer Falls lookout, which overlooks the falls into a beautiful rockpool and gorge, but no swimming allowed here because of the rare bat species which live in the gorge.

Then we drove to Buley Waterholes, near Florence Falls where we swam yesterday. Again, we were delighted to see several small cascading falls with connecting pools. Some were very deep, and they were stunning, so in we went again. The waterholes were crowded - indeed the signs in the little car park say "if the car park is full, the waterholes are crowded, so come back another time". We got the last parking spot.

Litchfield is a great park, and so close to Darwin. No wonder it is so popular, but we were here on a Sunday. We have found the park very well managed, with excellent walking tracks to the sights. The park does not charge you to enter.

Now we have pulled up in the town of Batchelor, which is quite near to the old Rum Jungle mining site. A quiet, very green and tidy town, very small, does not seem to have the problems of some towns we have stopped at. Batchelor has a TAFE type college for aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander students. Tonight, there is a fireworks display, on the Batchelor oval, to celebrate Territory Day. We will walk there from here. A fantastic last day for us, tomorrow it is back to Darwin, for a couple of days before we fly home.

Florence Falls

Saturday, this is our 2nd last night in the "truck", the time has flown. We are however exhausted, it has been a very active holiday.

Last night was not as quiet as we would have hoped. The boys and girls from the 2007 Wantirna High School Central Australia Tour ran like crazed animals around the Katherine Gorge campground, and it wasn't until after 10:00pm that their teachers, not really in control, tried to exercise some discipline and get their charges into their tents, where fights ensued and giggling lasted for a long time. These students, the boys in particular, showed no consideration for the other campers, and no respect for the aboriginal owners, and terrorised the noctural wildlife in a National Park. The administrators of Nitmiluk National Park are doing themselves no good service in accepting bookings from school groups, if this is how they behave.

We set off in the direction of Darwin today, and have now pulled into Litchfield National Park, 50km off the Stuart Highway, and about 80km short of Darwin. It is a great place, very well maintained, and with pristine water holes for swimming, and beautiful flowing creeks. First thing we did after a lunch by the gurgling Shady Creek was dive into a very large water hole, fed by a beautiful year round waterfall, in Florence Creek. How refreshing it was on this hot day. Many others had the same idea. No secluded water holes here!

This park must be very popular with "Darwinians", as it is so close to Darwin, and a real gem. Also, it's a weekend and it's Territory Day tomorrow (fireworks!), and we found we could not get into the National Park camping area at Wangi Falls that we wanted to. However, we have found a delightful spot nearby, Litchfield Safari Park, grassy, lots of trees and very quiet, and a powered site is a bonus. Not much chance of large school groups here!