Days 325-327 – Litchfield National Park, NT (4-6 August)

Heading to Litchfield Park which is 360km north west of Mataranka and 108kms south of Darwin.  Quite a cool morning when we left Mataranka and by the time we got to Katherine 90kms up the road it was raining and it was very cold!  We stopped in Katherine to stock up at Woolies and heading back onto the road.  While we stopped for petrol we saw Ian Thorpe (the swimmer) didn’t know he lived there!  Not a particularly attractive town.  Finally we got to Batchelor which is the closest town to Litchfield NP filled up with petrol yet again and heading about 5kms to the caravan park.  Another long day.  The following day we decided to have an lazy day and just dropped into the entrance to Litchfield NP to find what info we could find about walks, drives etc.  Loaded with info we spent the rest of the day working out a plan of attack for the following day (Friday).  Looks like we will have to do a couple of days in the park to see what we want to see and decided that on the first day we would do the sights furthest away.  The great thing about Litchfield NP is that there is no cost to get in. Our first stop was the magnetic termite mounds – there is literally a paddock full of them. “The wedge-shaped mounds are aligned in a north-south direction as a response to the environment. The termites which build them feed on grass roots and other plant debris found in plains which are seasonally flooded. Therefore, the termites are forced to remain above the water, in the mound. The alignment of the mound acts as a temperature regulator, and allows the temperature to remain stable”.  Quite amazing.   Our next stop was the Lost City which was 10.5km off the main road on a rough 4WD track.  The Lost City is a collection of rock formations of sandstone that have been left behind as the softer sandstone cap of the table top range eroded away over the years.   The formations certainly do look like man made structures and could have been an old civilised city.  They are actually quite spectacular and we spent sometime guessing what some of the rock shapes resembled to us.  Our next stop was Tjaynera Falls which again was 9kms on a dirt road.  The fun part was that we got to go through quite a broad water body that was 0.3m deep!  We then had a 1.7km walk to the falls where we could jump into a wonderful cool, blue and deep plunge pool.  It was fantastic.  Cold at first but so refreshing.  We swam underneath the waterfall and idled sometime there.   The water is so deep can’t see the bottom just rays of sunshine that go into deeper and darker blue water.  We had a mask and did see some fish, the ledges of the waterfall were very colourful and looked like marble.  It was such an amazing spot and so pretty.  After we had cooled down we then had the 1.7km walk back but took us a while to get hot after being so cooled from our swim.  From here we to Wangi Falls.  Wangi Falls has two waterfalls which drop into a large pool.  This pool is closed at present due to a crocodile being sighted in it.  There are lots of fish in there including black bream but no fishing allowed.  There is also a colony of black flying foxes in the trees edging the pool, there were hundreds of them.  Considering it was the middle of the afternoon they were quite active spreading their wings, cooling themselves with their wings – when they spread their wings surprised to see how large they are and almost transparent we could see the veins in them.   Wangi Falls are the most popular falls in the park due the ease of accessibility.  At the end of our first day in the park, we finally stopped at Tolmer Falls.  Aren’t able to get to the bottom of these falls as this is home to several colonies of rare and protected bat species the Ghost Bat and Orange Horseshoe Bats.  Spectacular falls specially as we could view them from a lookout where we could see the top the falls.  So off home to prepare for another big day tomorrow.  The caravan park we are staying at is 2.5km from Rum Jungle Lake.  Rum Jungle Lake is now a recreational lake but in a past life was an open pit uranium mine!  Imagine that!  By all accounts it is safe to use - no residue of toxins from the old mine and no crocs.  I took Coco there for a walk and a dip (her not me).  If interested here is a link on Rum Jungle.