Litchfield National Park

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On Friday I got up early to join a tour to Lichfield National Park, which is a couple of hours drive out of Darwin. Our first stop was at the Adelaide River where we had breakfast and coffee, held a couple of snakes, and then went on a boat cruise up the river to spot crocodiles. This tour was a little different than ones I've done in the past, as these crocodiles are used to performing to get food. They swim straight towards the boat when they hear you coming, and the staff hold some meat from a stick and the crocs jump out of the water twice on each side before getting the meat. They are totally wild crocs but are quite used to the drill, and perform very well for maximum photo opportunities. There were also birds of prey that grab little bits of meat that is thrown from the boat - kites mainly I think. The boat captain was also a bit of a character and gave a strangely abusive running commentary that was actually quite funny once you realised he was being sarcastic a lot of the time.

From there we went into Litchfield National Park where our first stop was Wangi Falls, where we were able to swim. There was a bit of water coming down from both waterfalls, but they are far more spectular in wet season. Then it was on to Florence Falls, which we just took photos of, and then on to Tolmer Falls for more photos. There is no access to Tolmer Falls because its home to rare Ghost and Orange Horseshoe Bats. We stopped at the Termite Mounds for yet more photos, which were pretty amazing. There were loads of Magnetic Termite Mounds which are built in a north/south direction to allow the least possible surface area to be exposed to the hear, and then headed to Buley Rock Hole for more swimming. This was quite unusual because there was a small swimming pool area that flowed down to the next small pool, then that flowed down into the next small pool, and so on and so on. You could start in the top one and swim/slide over the rapids to the pools below until you reached the bottom. It was very refreshing because as usual the day was hot.

From there it was a long drive back to Darwin. I couldn't find the others so had a shower and went down Mitchell Street to have dinner at an Indian restaurant I'd seen the night before. After dinner I went back to the YHA to have a reasonably early night since my flight back to Port is at 7am tomorrow.

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