Litchfield National Park

Friday 22nd September

We had planned on an early start today but beer and bonhomie got the better of us and it wasn’t until midday that we managed to get off. Poor old Silke and Angie, the two German lasses, had been up since 8-ish brimming with anticipation and had shopped, filled up with fuel and done all sorts of stuff and were STILL waiting for us – bless. I figured they’d better get used to it as I’m on hols and I ain’t no early riser! Not the getting up and outta bed early riser anyway! That said, we weren’t going too far – just to Litchfield National Park which was a short 90 klicks away. The drive itself was pretty uneventful but we were heading to two swimming areas – the Florence Falls and Buley’s Rock hole. They were beaut (mate), with us visiting Florence first and enjoying the swimming there. I piled straight in with Ang and Silke taking their time. In fairness to Silke, she’d only been in-country about 6 days and had heard about the Croc’s!! Finding this out was great as I explained that the crocs were ambush predators and usually ambushed their prey on the waters edge, which was where she was, naturally! The fact that there were also about 60 people in the waterhole also seemed to have passed her by but as I say, she was new to this!!

After a short dip, we strolled along a bush habitat trail to Buley’s Rock hole which was a mere 3 km away. I tell you now though, in the heat, that was punishing and it seemed more like 30 km than 3. We also were walking through a controlled burn area, where the Rangers deliberately set light to the bush grass to cause a slow burn through the area, which amazingly burns the grasses and small shrubs, blackens the odd tree trunk but doesn’t change into some godforsaken bush fire – very impressive. I’d been reading about how these slow burns (originated by the Aborigine’s) also allowed the animals and insects to get away – with the added bonus of the kites and hawks circling the fire zone and ambushing anything tasty that caught the eye. I’d seen the birds before when driving past bush fires in the Van but being right in it, I heard at one point, a lot of rustling and noise ahead of me on the path, which was crossing a dry creek and would you believe it, all manner of lizards, gecko’s, small furry animals, maybe Quoll’s and what not were making like a tree and leafing. Like the croc attacks though, it was over in seconds and I had no time to get the camera out but it was an amazing sight though.

Buley’s Rock hole was a welcome rest after the heat of the bush and the fire and we spent a good hour ‘bombing’ the surrounding people by jumping in the pool. I felt thoroughly refreshed on the way back, but 3k was again a killer in the heat and the fire had moved an amazing distance in that time and we were away from the danger zone. It had left plenty of wood about though which we pillaged for our bonfire later at Florence Fall’s.





Saturday 23rd September

Our mission today was simply to get to the end of the road at Litchfield to a place called Wangi falls. It was well worth the trip as the pool was massive, warm and beautifully located. There were also these cool little rock pools a couple of metres up the cliff which you could wallow in as well!

Angie had mentioned a flyer that she saw advertising a rodeo at a pub just North of the Park, in a place called Litchfield and we decided that this could be a great way to spend a Saturday night. The drive wasn’t too far and we arrived and booked into a site. What a relief to get a powered site again and have the fan running!

The rodeo was a part of a regular thing held at a number of places in the NT and they would be riding Brumbies as well as bulls – it promised to be a goodun! I nipped in to the boozer for a couple of snifters and we got chatting to two lads who after about 10 minutes had invited us fishing for the elusive ‘Barra’. I may well have taken them up on the idea as the costs I’d seen quoted in Darwin were up to $350 for half a day which wasn’t cricket – ‘fuel costs’ apparently. Unfortunately, we wanted to be away from the Top End pretty sharpish, but if I end up staying, I’ll do an ‘Arnie’ for sure.

The Rodeo was good fun, the lads are pretty brave and it’s no mean feat staying up on the animals, especially when they head straight for the fence and try and grind the rider into it! We got some spectacular video footage of one guy getting thrown – but no-one was hurt! Not even the kid who got plowed down by the horse after it threw him. That boy can take a tackle!! The show finished at 11pm and afterwards everyone had the option of kicking on until 2am. No-one in our group was up for it (except me of course!) so we ended up having an early(ish) night, although you wouldn’t have guessed as we woke up late and left about 10.30am!!