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Published: July 18th 2012
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15th July 2012
We left Katherine and had morning tea and a swim at Edith Falls, just north of Katherine. This is a lovely spot for camping or day use, with scenic falls and a good swimming area. We had lunch at Hayes Creek, then continued to Litchfield. We saw the amazing "magnetic" termite mounds, which are sheet-shaped and oriented to reduce solar heat input. Incredible to think how a colony of insects can conceive and engineer these structures over decades! We had hoped to stay at the Wangi Falls campground but it was full, so we stayed at the nearby Litchfield Safari Caravan Park. We have natural bushy sites at the rear of the park, very quiet and well located to see Litchfield tomorrow.
16th July 2012
We saw wallabies and a dingo as we drove out of the campsite to go to Florence Falls. These are lovely falls with a lookout and a descent down 132 stairs to a swimming area at the base of the falls. We then walked to the Buley Rockholes, a series of pools along a creek, and had a swim in one of the quieter ones (the further end
was very busy). We went to Sandy Creek/Tjaynera Falls for lunch. It's a 4WD track to the carpark and a 1.7km walk to the falls so these falls are much quieter than Florence Falls, but very lovely with the red cliff face and a beautiful spot to swim. We then stopped at the Depression era Blyth Homestead (unsure if it was occupied by any relations of Mike's mum, who is a Blyth). This is a corrugated iron homestead. Past occupants worked with stock and also did some tin mining nearby.
Finally we did another walk and swim at the Cascades. All up we had walked about 11km during the day. The boys put in a fabulous effort. We made damper for dessert, on the campfire.
17th July 2012
We packed up our Litchfield camp, and had a swim at Wangi falls. These are lovely high double falls, very accessible. The nearby walk in monsoon forest has a lot of bats above. The water temperature was great for swimming. We then went to the Tolmer falls lookouts, then drove on to Darwin. We are camped at the Lee Point Caravan Park. A lot of the caravan
parks in Darwin are full, however this one has large areas for unpowered camping so usually has some vacancies. We got the last three powered sites.
18th July 2012
We spent the morning in central Darwin, walking near the waterfront and along to the war memorial, past government house and parliament house. It's a gorgeous blue day for walking around, and the waterfront area is beautifully developed (apparently stage two is still to come). We had a look at historic Lyon's cottage. We had lunch at Symplys, which has a lot of nice vegetarian food. We then had a swim in the Wave Lagoon in the waterfront area, which is a pool with mechanical waves. Very good value at $12 for half a day for a family of four, and we all enjoyed it. Then Mike dropped mum, Alex, Kyle and I off at the Botanic Gardens while he went to buy a new and more robust arial for the Patrol. The gardens are beautiful, and also have a vegetable community garden. It's very easy to move around Darwin compared with Perth, as the population here is under 150 000, compared to 1.7 million in Perth!
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