Back on the road: towards Pine Creek 31/07/15
We had a fair bit of driving to do to leave Litchfield and get back onto the Stuart Highway and towards Pine Creek. To split it up we stopped after 70 km in Batchelor at the Butterfly Farm for morning tea. Another 70 km got us to Hayes Creek / Butterfly Gap where we had some lunch. Despite being midday we set out for a little walk - jumping over the creek and into the woodland to find the promised “hundreds of butterflies”. Hidden in the bush on the shady side of a huge rock wall we found butterfly gap with thousands of butterflies. Some sitting, some flying, some flapping their little wings: thousands of common crow butterflies. We could even get close enough to gently touch them and it was beautiful to see them fly off and come back 2 m further up. Another little gem on the side of the road!
Since it was still too hot to be out in the open, we decided to drive further towards Pine Creek, top up our Diesel and find a campsite on the local caravan park at the old Pine Creek Turf Club. We got a bit of a funny place right in front of the bar but Sarah was happily making friends with a little boy and his bike straight away. They had fun riding around and cheering on the older brothers doing stunts with their bikes. There was also a little playground and a dog happily returned the balls Sarah was throwing. The sunset was red and beautiful, the full moon came out right on time before we finished our dinner and due to a powered site we had the pleasure of a cool van – what a great day.
Edith Falls 1/8/15
With an early start from Pine Creek we managed to be at Edith Falls around 10 am and we just got the last caravan parking spot! Edith Falls has a 2.5 km loop walk from the large bottom rock pool all the way up to the top pool, where you can swim and than walk back down again on the other side. Sarah wasn’t impressed at first since the path started out too straight for her liking. But soon it went uphill and became more of a climb. Martin got her to find the path by following the arrows and she managed well until a little fall where she scratched her hand and she was in tears. Luckily the Ranger came around the corner that very moment and distracted her enough but Martin still had to carry her for a bit. A bit later we met the Ranger again and Sarah was brave enough to ask him about crocodiles in the pools. He explained to her that there are some small Freshies in the lower pool but that they only eat insects and little fish and there are no crocs in the upper pool… When we reached the upper pool, we were all keen on getting into the water, because it was getting hotter. We had a lovely swim through 3 connected rock pools and than enjoyed a snack on the rocks before heading down again. We were all hot again and jumped in for another cool down in the bottom rock pool.
We spend some more time playing in the shade of the trees with Matt, Cass, Luka & Sullivan from Sydney (we've met them in Litchfield before) before heading to a free camp site 20 km off Katherine. It was a relaxed afternoon, Sarah had time to play and we all went to bed early.
