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Published: December 1st 2010
I was just so excited about Litchfield National Park. Not only had we heard that it was one of the highlights of the Northern Territory, but we were meeting up with the Fitzpatrick family when we got there. The lovely Fizz (or Colin - mate of mine I met in Leeds over 10 years ago), his wonderful wife Tani (a Kiwi and all round great friend who lived in Leeds for years with Fizz) their daughter Phoebe (one very very cool ‘just turned 2’ year old) and bump (wee brother to be for Phoebs) who live in Darwin.
We kind of managed to completely miscalculate how long the journey would take us from Kakadu to get there and arrived about 2 hrs later than planned to find that Fizz and Tani had saved a pitch for us and had beers and low alcohol wine (for Tani not me) chilling in the ‘esky’.
The last time I saw Phoebe she slightly smaller, sleeping off a heavy milk meal in a buggy at the now Mr & Mrs Allen’s wedding. Although it had been a while I was pretty put out that she didn’t recognise me. Not only that but it
soon transpired that Xan was her favourite! She did however get his name wrong, and much to my delight took to calling him ‘Xandra’ as one of the ladies at her playgroup was called Sandra. When all tucked up in bed that night she announced to Tani ’Xandra’s my new friend’ and came to our van calling for him first thing the next morning!
Litchfield Park itself is stunning, it’s all about the waterfalls. Loads of amazing waterfalls. We headed to one with the Fitzpatricks and although it was busy with it being the weekend were lucky enough to have the top pool of the falls pretty much to ourselves. Great way to cool down on a hot and sticky, erm winter day in the Northern Territory (had to keep reminding myself we were there in their winter, so hot) Phoebe loved it and was doing a great job of 'running’ under water between us.
As well as the waterfall we stopped at the magnetic termite mounds, all built by those crazy little critters on a precise north to south axis. Some of them bloody huge as well. We also visited a butterfly farm to find that there
Flutterby Farm
The one with more butterflies in the wild outside than in the enclosures!were more butterflies in the gardens outside the enclosures than in them. Something not quite right about that.
After the weekend Fizz, Tani and Phoebe had to head back to Darwin to those pesky things called jobs but we stayed on for a couple of days to explore a bit more of the park. The waterfalls are all so different. Buley Rockhole where we were with Fizz and Tani has small falls and was very busy but there's great pools for swimming in. Wangi Falls is just one huge pool at the bottom of a couple of huge waterfalls. Again, even though it was a Monday that we headed there, it was really quite busy but just gorgeous. We also made the short hike up to Tjaetaba which has just one small but very deep pool at the top of a big drop. We had it to ourselves most of the time, that was until a monitor lizard came along and looked likely to get in the water alongside me. I swiftly vacated the pool!
For the couple of night’s we were there ourselves we stayed at a campsite within the park itself which to Xan’s delight, allowed
Huge Mound
Termite mound that is you to have fires. Xan loves a fire and set about collecting firewood for a biggie that we sat by for hours in the dark drinking our vino and taking in the millions of stars you could see. Perfect.
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