Wednesday 12 November 2014

Australia 2014 - (28) Litchfield National Park

After spending the last few days recovering from my intense ride from Broome to Darwin, I finally felt up to seeing something a bit further afield than the city centre today. I took a tour to the Litchfield National Park, about 110 km south of Darwin.

The bus collected me from the Transit Centre at 7.15 am and as I climbed aboard and saw there was only one other person anywhere near my age, a German lady called Tina, I began to wonder if the ‘AAT’ in AATKings stood for ‘Ancient and Aged Tours’. They were all lovely people, but given one of the main features of the tour was being able to swim in all the waterfalls and rock pools of the Park, and none of them were fit enough to do this, it seemed like either Tina and I or the oldies had booked the wrong tour.

Not to be put off, our driver, Gordon set off with a running commentary of the landscape through which we were travelling. After a stop for a cup of tea at a caravan park near Batchelor, and another to look at Cathedral and Magnetic Termite Mounds, we continued to the first waterfall of the day, Florence Falls. Tina and I headed down the track and soon were immersed in the gorgeous cooling waters at the bottom of the falls. As we dried off afterwards, a water monitor lizard appeared at the edge of the swimming hole. For once I managed to grab my camera and take a few pictures before it went for a swim itself.

After a stop for lunch, we continue to the next waterfall, Wangi Falls. This was considerably bigger than the first one and had several bus-loads of tourists all bathing in its waters. Again, Tina and I plunged in and managed to swim right out to the bigger of the two cascades where we got pummelled by the falling waters.

Our final stop was the Buley Rock Holes, a series of descending pools formed at the upper reaches of Florence Falls. A load of young aboriginal boys were bombing into the largest of the pools so Tina and I had to content ourselves with squirming around some of the higher, shallower pools.

There was one other fall we were supposed to see, Tolmer Falls, but alas this was closed due to maintenance work.

On the way back, a huge thunder and lightning storm developed and by the time we got back to Darwin the city streets were awash with water and, for once, the air was cooler. What a great day.