Day 23 Litchfield National Park

 It is a strange thing to cross the border by road, and find yourself in a different time zone.  Consequently, the children were not in bed last night until after 9pm local.  We thought that we were up early, but in reality it was about 0645 when I found myself outside the van watching the sun rise just after 0700.  The morning was crisp, and we are most definitely in the Northern Territory today.  There are mozzies everywhere day and night, and  the landscape has changed from the red dirt and sharp rocky ranges of the Kimberley to the lush green tropical forests and grasses.

We are staying at the Litchfield Tourist Park, about 4km from the national park.

Today we set about seeing as much of Litchfield National Park as possible.  We set a strategy to see things and loaded the car up before getting underway around 10am.  First stop was the Magnetic Termite Mounds.  I wasn’t overly excited about this stop, but they really are quite unusual after the big clumpy termite mounds of red dirt.  Very flat and aligned North South.  They appear to only be at this one place, which is even more unusual.  I couldn't help but feel we were looking at old tombstones in the grass.  We also stopped at a termite mound they call the cathedral, which is approx 5m tall.  Very impressive work for the little fellas.

From the Magnetic Termite Mounds, we travelled through Litchfield to Wangi Falls which is the real drawcard of the park.  Although they aren't the largest falls, there is a gigantic freshwater pool at the bottom which is apparently safe to swim in.  The kids stripped down to their undies and paddled on the step for a while, and the more I stared at the pool, the more I needed to get into it.  I changed into shorts, and hurled myself into the clear water.  I'm sure I felt the surface ice cracking as I went through.   We lingered here for a while, swimming and soaking up the serenity.

Dragging ourselves away, it was approaching lunch time, so we made our way back to Tolmer Falls for a picnic and a gawk!  It was a beautiful lookout some 100m high overlooking the cascading water to the clear green pool at the bottom.  There were also a couple of large caves that are home to a colony of endangered bats.  We had our sandwiches and continued on to the Lost City.

For some reason, fire seems to have preceded our visits to parks and attractions, and the Lost City was burnt thoroughly.  There was no green vegetation except that which was high up on the rocky formations.  It was an interesting walk imagining the different shapes and formations coming to life, but would have been much more spectacular if the tropical forest was present through the ruins.

We decided to take one more site in today, and stopped at Florence Falls.  This was the best one of the day with 2 cascading waterfalls crashing into a great clear pool at the bottom.  We stood staring in disbelief at the couple scaling the rock face, and to our surprise, full of bravery or stupidity, this man jumped from the top.  All I could think of was OUCH as he hit the water hard, mostly butt first, but then his girlfriend leapt from about half wall.  I had the presence of mind to photograph the second jump, but was a bit stunned that anyone was so stupid as to jump from the top.

Lisa decided she wanted a walk, so she took off to do the shady walk to Buley Rockhole.  I packed the kids in the car and drove around to the car park.  I must admit, that even I couldn't resist the look of the water flowing down several tiers of rock pools.  The kids and I jumped in and languished in the pool whilst we waited for Lisa to show up.  I managed to find a comfortable seat below a small waterfall, and had an extended massage.  Lisa eventually came up to where we were, and gushed about the walk before jumping into the pool herself and cooling off. 

My walk (Lisa) was a 1.1km hike to the bottom of Florence falls through lush monsoonal rainforest. It was lovely and quiet with many butterflies, lizards and a lot of serenity; then 135 stairs up to the top lookout again. A little puffed, I set off on the 1.7km hike to meet the rest at Buley Rockhole. This hike was not so pleasant - no shade, lots of dry grass with slithering on the edges and in 35 degree heat. It did mean, however, that I got my exercise and was finally tempted to join the rest of the family in the water. Very refreshing.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the caravan, reading books and playing on iPods. Tomorrow we move on to Darwin.