Blow Ants off Before Eating!

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DAY 261

Amazingly I am out of bed first again this morning, nature’s anaesthetic has taken hold of Andy he is still sleeping, well maybe just trying to wake up. By the time I grab my things, have a wash and get back to camp Andy is up and about, we have two water bottles ready, hats and suitable footwear, not to mention a little bit of enthusiasm for the short walk through the Treetops and round the top of Wangi Falls.

We decided to walk early catching a little bit of the cool morning before the sun heats up. We know that going over the top of the falls there is very little shade and a midday walk would be way too hot.

We set off out of the camp site past the kiosk, down to the Wangi Falls plunge pool, there are 4 people in the water already, the pool is in the shade, but I am sure the water is as lovely now as it is in the late afternoon when it is mainly in sunshine. We turn right and head out onto the short stretch of boardwalk, the Bats are squeaking well this morning, you can hear nothing else but Bats!

It is lovely to be out and about for a walk, even though it is only a short one. I let Andy go first, as we are not sure if anyone else has taken the walk, I need Andy to walk into all of the Golden Orb Spider cobwebs first in order to clear my path. I am sure he knows of my plan though, the female of this species are huge and I would not want to unwittingly walk into one of them, otherwise you may find you have a live brooch wandering around your chest!!

We look up and see hundreds, no probably thousands, of Bats (Black Flying Foxes) hanging in the trees, be wary of keeping your mouth shut when you look up, if you know what I mean.

As our walk proceeds the noise of the squeaking gets fainter, it is beautiful walking through this rainforest, sadly we are not seeing it at its best, we both wonder how magnificent it would be with all the flowers in bloom and everything lush and green from the wet season.

We climb up the wooden steps that we climbed yesterday and take a rest at the top, admire the view, some other walkers come past us, great they can break the cobwebs! We move on higher, the wooden steps disappear but there is a marked path, mainly crazy paved, we just follow the path, we are now at the top and the shade is sparse, the sun is not yet too powerful, the scenery is amazing, we walk over the bridge, underneath us is the creek that serves Wangi Falls, we wonder how the wet season would make this tranquil running creek flow.

Walking on, we admire the stunning view across Litchfield National Park and the surrounding area, a woman jogs towards us, she has her Ipod plugged into her ears, we did not say anything just “Good Morning”, to which she replied as she took one of her ear plugs out, “I know, mad!” Yes, she said it, but if that’s what she wants to do then that is fine with us, she soon vanishes from sight.

We make our way down the path on the other side of the falls and soon return to where we started, there are a few more people in the water, by midday this place will be heaving.

Andy asked if I had any money on me, I didn’t, he fancied a coffee at the kiosk, but I said we can have breakfast back at camp which was only another 5 minute walk.

The kettle is soon whistling and our much needed and well deserved cup of tea is ready, the first cup of the day. We sit and discuss breakfast, Andy said don’t go to much trouble. Hmmm, it is not long before I knock up a feast of bacon, eggs and pancakes. It all went down exceptionally well.

Why did we have pancakes? Well, our only loaf of bread had been invaded by those tiny ants again, along with some crackers and a half open packet of crisps. The bread had to be thrown away, but the crackers and the crisps are salvageable as long as you blow the ants off before eating.

The day is not quite hot, Andy goes for his cold shower, I wait until later when the water will be hot. We then get on with the day and jump in the truck to head to Florence Falls roughly 25k’s from where we are camping.

Florence Falls are stunning we were going to do the walk there and take the many steps down to the pool below. Again many people go down there with the intention of a swim, however we stand at the top talking to a retired couple from Sydney, they are picking our brains about Western Australia, they have never been there before and are looking forward to it, they decided to just hook up the caravan and travel for a year, they travelled up the East Coast and across to Darwin first.

We chatted for ages, so the momentum was lost and the time was escaping we were hoping for an easy afternoon back at camp and a swim at Wangi, so we jumped back in the truck to head for the Lost City before getting back to camp.

On the way out of Florence Falls we investigate the 4wd only camping site it is at the bottom of a very steep hill, there are only a few spaces down there but what a lovely site to camp. I boot up the laptop in the hope there is some internet, getting back up to the top I have one green bar, so out on the main road we pull up and upload two days worth of blog’s. We find a message from the Ridgeway’s, unfortunately we find that they are in Darwin they sent us a message on the day we left but we were out of internet so did not get it, the last time we saw them was at Cable Beach in Broome, it seems a million years ago. Sadly this time we have missed them, but maybe they will catch us up somewhere further along as we head out East.

Back on the road again to the Lost City, my map tells me it is 8k’s down a dirt track, 4wd only, but after 8k’s we decide that the city must still be lost, we travel a bit further on and at 10k’s we find it, it’s ok the Lost City is not lost anymore! How many times have people heard that one, I wonder?

Andy was not too impressed, but it is one of those things, if we did not see it, we would have been disappointed, the rock formations are impressive, there is a marked walk to take you round them. The rocks over the years have been weathered into magnificent shapes, you can see trees growing on the tops of some and the roots trail down the gaps in between the rocks to the ground. Evidence of a bush fire has come through here at some point as the ground and foliage is clearly charred.

It is really hot here in amongst the rocks, back at the truck Andy refills the water bottles, he tells me that the 9 litre Esky is now empty, it was full when we pulled out of Darwin and that is the one that we keep in the truck while we are out and about, back at camp we have further water supplies that we have also been drinking. It is no surprise at how much water you can get through in this climate.

We finally arrive back at camp at 4.00, so much for our lazy afternoon, we wander down to the kiosk and grab an icecream, while we sit and eat it we watch a Bower Bird looking for scraps for his bower, the gift he uses to lure the ladies. He sits on the edge of the bin looking for things to take, I am not sure what colour he is looking for as I know some Bower Birds are attracted to certain colours i.e. just blue, or green or pale grey/white.

I go for a shower, although the showers are busy there is plenty of hot water, as soon as I come out the four available showers are taken again, the hot water won’t last long at this rate.

I do some Brain Training while Andy types up the blog for yesterday, I seem to be managing to maintain a Brain Age of 40, however it sometimes gets older depending on what time of day and how tired I am when doing the test (and how many interruptions). Still it is good fun and it is making me think.

I cook up an early tea of chilli and rice, we want dinner before it gets dark as we get inundated with mosquitoes, sand flies etc. but that backfired, as soon as dinner was ready and I was dishing up you could hear the immense buzzing of flies surrounding us, the only way to eat our dinner without fly swatting was to decamp into the tent where we could eat in peace.

After dinner we sit back outside, I wander off to do the washing up at the amenities block, I find that finally the hot water has run out, but the washing up is done anyway. Back at camp I find Andy having a shave, he boiled some water in the Billy and is using the drivers side mirror. We finish the blog, played Mahjong, did a little bit of stargazing and at 9.30 we went to bed. Half an hour later we both sat up in bed and said “I cannot sleep,” so we got the cards out, sitting in bed we played 3 games Andy beat me in all three, that soon made us both tired, so lights out and to sleep we went.

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Photos

Caroline
Making her way up to the top.

Gently Meandering
This creek feeds Wangi Falls, I wonder how gently this runs in the wet season?