Litchfield National Park 28-30. July
2015
A lot of people told us how beautiful Litchfield National Park is, so we decided to spend a couple of days there. Beside Kakadu, this is the other major National Park at the top of the Northern Territory. Regine was keen on trying out some more gravel road so we took the ‘Tumbling Waters’ way into the park. Learning from past experience, as soon as we hit the gravel I lowered the tyre pressure down again – and of course we had 25km of the best gravel road we ever travelled on. And as soon as you get into the National Park it’s all bitumen again. We planned on staying at ‘Walkers Creek’, but there were only walk-in camp sites available so we headed to the main camp site of Wangi Falls – only to find all the campsites already taken. Apparently you have to be here by 10am to get a site. We weren’t keen on driving out of the park again (50+ km), so we just camped on the side of someone else’s site and soon became friends with Liz and Rob.
Once the camping was sorted we headed to the Wangi waterfall and had a fantastic swim in the fresh water. After the cool down we had enough energy to do the 1.5 km walk to the top of the falls, seeing the bats in the trees and a wild pig in the bushes. In the middle of a steep and rocky climb Sarah suddenly said: “I’m so happy”. It’s interesting how she now prefers sticks and leaves, stones and sand over any toys we carry in our van.
Cooling down at Wangi Falls
In the evening there was a ‘Ranger Talk’ about the park which was quite interesting. Liz and Rob went as well and when we came back, Regine joined us for a lovely night of socializing in front of the vans.
Next morning I prowled the camp site for anyone leaving and soon we were able to setup our van in a proper site. Next we headed back to Bamboo Creek to hear another Ranger Talk about an old tin mine. Tin must have been a very important metal in the early 20th century to endure all this hardship for what seems very little tin. We arrived just as the official tour finished, but the ranger offered to take us on another tour of the site. Thanks very much, Wendy.
It was heating up again so we stopped at the Cascade Falls for a swim. It’s a 1.2 km walk, but the last 400m were pretty challenging rock hopping along the creek bed. Sarah managed just fine while Regine was struggling but soon we were all swimming happily in the rock pool.
The Cascades and a little monitor
We went back to our van for lunch - everything in Litchfield is much closer together and with only one caravan capable camp ground you are forced to leave the caravan behind and drive forward and backward.
In the late afternoon we went to the
Tolmer Falls. It’s the highest falls in the park. It’s dry season now, but
still a very impressive view from the viewing platform. I thought Sarah would
be tired by now, so I wanted to go for a little loop walk (1.5km) and to meet
Sarah and Regine back at the car. However Sarah wanted to do the walk with me.
I told her that she has to walk the whole track on her own and that I won’t
carry her. So off we went – Sarah leading the way. She was walking so fast that
at times we had trouble keeping up with her. We didn’t see much of the scenery,
as we must have done this track in record times.
You also see a yellow flowering tree at the moment. It's used by Aboriginals to tell the season of the fresh water crocodile. When it flowers the crocodiles mate, when it fruits the eggs get laid and when the fruit pops open the young crocodiles hatch.
Tolmer falls, Cycadias and the crocodile plant - must be egg laying saison.
We decided to stay another night in the park, so we could attend another ranger talk about termites. There are some termites who build their mount in an North-South direction, very flat and thin, to minimize the temperature impact of the sun, and they are known as magnetic termites mounts. The 2 big, bulky mounts are not the 'magnetic' ones but are said to be around 500 years old. Simply amazing.
Magnetic termites, Cathedral termites and the table top swamp
We also checked out the other big
attraction: the Buley Rock Holes – a series of small cascading rock holes – filled
with hundreds of tourists. (How nice would it be without all the other
tourists!!) They even have a sign at the parking lots: “if you can’t find a
parking spot, the rock pools are full as well. Come back later.”
Just 3 km up the road are the Florence Falls. Again a fantastic waterfall that you approach from the top, with superb swimming at the bottom, filled with people. We all got tired by that time, so we decided not to swim here as it was a decent climb down to the pool. Instead we headed back to our van and then straight to the little coffee shop on site for some ice cream as the mercury approached 33 C again. Another swim in the Wangi water hole finished our day.
Buley Rock Hole and Florence falls. Crowded with bloody tourists ;-)
We found Litchfield NP to be everything we missed in Kakadu – full of people, spectacular waterfalls, great swimming and even the information on the park was much easier to obtain and everything was very well signed. I’m sure Kakadu completely transforms during the wet and has a huge variety of habitats, but Litchfield is much easier accessible and has water during the dry.