Luscious Litchfield

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After leaving Edith Falls we headed for a place called Douglas Hot Springs, a little way north and about 70k’s off the main highway, the last section of that on unsealed road. There are still plenty of unsealed roads still in regular use in Oz, providing the only way to get to certain places. These can be gravel, mud, sand or anything else and are often corrugated, vibrating vehicle and passengers to within an inch of their life. Many were sealed during the war particularly up this way, to provide an efficient supply route to the northern ports and airstrips, but there are some pretty major roads that have only been tarmac’d surprisingly recently. Travelling the vast distances involved here is challenging enough on smooth bitumen, it is difficult to imagine the weeks and weeks of dust and misery involved when the routes were still just bare earth, particularly before the relatively comfortable 4WD turned up. Maps nowadays show sealed and unsealed roads and normally differentiate between those suitable for 2-wheel drive (2WD) and 4WD only. Both can become impassable at certain times of the year and just after the wet it is advisable to check on the condition of what has been left behind. The rains can wash away sections and scour out previously shallow fords to a point where your average campervan might go, but never return. So, having checked with the helpful lady at Katherine tourist info, we were assured that getting to the hot springs at Douglas was no problem. I think you can guess what is coming… after 60k’s of tarmac we hit the gravel, not comfortable but OK, then for interest came some rutted mud, but the final show stopper was a river crossing with steep slopes either side, that we decided would see us saying goodbye to another insurance excess if we attempted it. Funnily enough we met a couple the very next day who had made it across the river in one of the bigger style mobile homes. I don’t know if we had just chickened out and we could have made it, or whether our little van would have ended up with none of its wheels touching the ground. What I do know is that he said it had been a bit hit and miss, but more importantly he was a retired vicar and obviously a power far greater than a 2.4l petrol engine helping him.

So that was.. I mean wasn’t Douglas Hot Springs - it’s very nice apparently. After a night in a roadside rest area we started north again driving through early morning mist and fog, which incidentally reminds me of a phrase; ‘Mists I have seen and scenes I have missed’ hehe.. made me smile anyway. Our destination was Litchfield National Park, only an hour or so south of Darwin, we were getting close!! Like millions of other tourists our original target was the more famous Kakadu National Park, but due to time constraints originally and later the fact that half of it was still closed after the rainy season, we had shifted our sights to Litchfield. Everything we had read about it suggested that it was actually a very underrated destination and offered endless opportunities for getting wet in swimming holes and waterfalls - sounded like just the place for us!

First stop were the Magnetic Termite mounds on the main road into the park. I have to say we had seen billions of termite mounds by this point and given the publicity and hype that these particular ones had received, were expecting something really special. Well they were OK, some of them were pretty big, they were all flat, rather the big amorphous blobs like we had seen before, but their main claim to fame was their orientation. They aren’t actually magnetic in any way, but do mysteriously ‘point’ north-south (I think). The theory behind it goes something like this. By building the mound with its flat sides facing east - west, it warms quickly in the morning, but avoids the worst of the harsh midday sun from the North (yep it’s all different down here) when the rays hit the thin edge of the wedge. Fascinating! There is a philosophy that says the knowledge about how to build a successful mound is handed down genetically from termite to termite, however the facts remain that if you build it wrong you will fry. Personally I go with the Darwinian angle by which you don’t get to see the ones that got it wrong.

OK, that’s enough education, it was playtime and off to our first watering hole - Florence Falls. Only a short walk from the car and coach park, a fact reflected by the number of people crowding the water. The situation was not helped because it was a Sunday and this is a popular day trip from Darwin. The falls were pretty cool and the crazy Scandanavians jumping from the top entertaining (if a little disturbing), but call us antisocial - there were just too many people.

Next stop was Greenant Creek and a hot half hour walk up to Tjaetaba falls, that should throw a few people off the scent. Sure enough, we had the beautiful plunge pool at the top of the main falls to ourselves for a lot of the time and at most a few other people.

We stayed in an official campsite overnight, time to top-up the ever struggling fridge battery and write some blogs. The next morning we went in search of the Bamboo tin mine. It transpired that this like a few of the other sights hadn’t been opened yet after the wet - some because the water was too high for swimming, others like this because the access roads had been demolished. Not to be outdone, we guessed that it was only a kilometer walk down the barricaded undriveable track, so we parked on the main road and headed into the bush. The paths were a little overgrown, always a bit worrying as you end up with the odd spiders web in your face, but it was the sight of another huge (3m long x 2m square) crocodile trap and the loud rustling in the bushes that really got the adrenalin pumping! Maybe there was a good reason why it was still closed off to the public! Anyway, we only saw one tree snake and apart from sweating even more than usual we survived to see the old mine and make it back to the road alive - real Scooby Doo stuff.

To relax and recover we returned to Tjaetaba falls again for the afternoon, enjoying the peace and tranquility, that was until this German bloke turned up, striped off and displayed himself to us like a parading cock and you can interpret the use of that last word as you wish. Now, I know we’re British and all that, but we’re not prudish - it was just his “I’m all that” attitude and when he winked at Lexa it was the final straw for her! I just hope it hurt when he jumped in.

All was not lost as we headed back toward the park entrance for a quick dip at the rather nice Buley Rockholes, before camping at the CALM site near Florence Falls. After a quiet night we were back to the rockholes in the morning. These are a gorgeous series of different size pools with small waterfalls and slides between them, hours of fun - in fact we ended up spending all day there. We bumped in to Brian and Sarah from Switzerland, a nice couple who we had first met at Tjaetaba and spent the day messing around and getting sunburnt as only the Brits and as it turns out the Swiss know how. To add to the entertainment we were joined by one of the local iguanas. As you can imagine there was much screaming and scrambling out as it slid into the water! Lexa let out a yelp as it emerged right alongside her! Eventually we dragged ourselves away and left late afternoon for the final sprint to Darwin, stopping 20k’s out of town for the night.

The next morning was the slightly mammoth task of cleaning the van and packing our belongings back into our rucksacks that now looked even smaller than ever. With this achieved and spare food donated to a campsite resident we drove the last 20k’s into the big smoke, 9207km, goodness knows how many litres of fuel and one kangaroo after leaving Perth. Blimey, who’s idea was that!!

Nursing sunburn, struggling with the humidity and now transport-less having given the van back, we really didn’t see much of Darwin. We managed a walk along the ‘seafront’, which is basically a mangrove swamp with water full of crocs and stingers, all very ecologically sound but not much comfort to a hot tourist.

In the evening we went crazy and had our first meal out in Oz so far, steak and chips for $12 (£4.80) and were befriended by an Army guy who Lexa made the mistake of saying hello to at the bar. After having the day off, which he had successfully spent in the pub, speech was now quite a struggle for him and coherent conversation was non-existent. So, having had our cultural exchange with the locals, we made our very real excuses of having a 5AM airport bus the next morning and headed to our hostel.

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Comments

[Martyn]

Magnetic termites
Hey, has anyone bothered to check whether the termite mounds point magnetic north-south or true north-south? Or is it so approximate you can't tell? You are right with the Darwinian natural selection explanation about their behaviour, though. For instance, if your dad was dumb enough to get himself killed before he passed on his genes to the next generation, then it's likely you will too. Oh, hang on...