We toured Litchfield NP today, well we did as many things as we could; some places were closed (The Lost City, which we really did want to see)(no road access), some places were accessible by rough 4WD track (Blythe Homestead, Tjaynera Falls/Sandy Creek and Surprise Creek Falls), and others we chose to not do because we had had enough by then (Walker Creek, Bamboo Creek Tin Mine, and Buley Rockhole). Places visited and things seen are:
1. Magnetic Termite Mounds - these mounds stand well over 2m tall and face north-south in orientation to control the temperature throughout the day by exposing the least amount of surface area as possible to the sun. Had mornos here.
2. Florence Falls - a spectacular double waterfall set amid monsoon rainforest (wasn't so monsoony at this time of the year).
3. Tabletop Swamp - basically just another Billabong with native reeds and snowflake lilies surrounded by a Paper Bark Swamp area.
4. Tolmer Falls - one of the most spectacular falls, cascading over two separate escarpments into a distant plunge pool where several colonies of Ghost Bats and Horseshoe Bats live (didn't see these).
5. Greenant Creek - just a creek. We had lunch here. There was another falls we could have walked to but opted out. Didn't see any greenants.
6. Wangi Falls - the park's most popular site due to the large freshwater pool that is fed by two high falls. We had an afternoon icecream here. A 70 yr old NSW tourist got lost here on Sunday, and was found today when we were there; we saw the helicopters and NTES searching for her. We intended to have a swim here, but the OH&S/fun police had closed it due to "strong currents", which were about as strong as a bath tap.
7. Cascades - we did the top cascades walk and it was more of a hike with big loose rocks on the path which Wendy did not enjoy very much. When you have small feet it's sometimes hard to get any purchase on the ground. It was worth the climb, very impressive, hard to capture on a photo though.
On the way home we stopped at the Zebra Stone Gallery to check out this unique stone. And no, the rocks don't only have stripes, but all different shapes. Apparently, when this stuff is exported O/S, they believe we have just painted the rock and are trying to pull a swifty. However, the rock is only found in Australia, and the patterns are formed by some ancient geological process. The patterns are actually iron deposits; the light bands being Limonite (Hematite and H2O, the darker ones being Hematite (Fe2O3). If you have any further interest in it, Google it! We left empty-handed as nothing appealed to us (more jewellery than anything else).
In the 100 km or so that we drove today, we didn't see one wild animal on the roads and whilst walking in the park, except for skinks and a few catlle.
And so ends another great day in the great Australian outdoors.
Arachnophobes worst nightmare
Batchelor Anglican Church, pre-dawn
There are nice paths in Batchelor; although the town seems to be waning, everything is still well kept
Rum Jungle Lake, a re-purposed, refurbished, and re-vegetated uranium mine
Entrance to Litchfield
Magnetic Termite mounds
A termite mound we found in the bush that was devoid of tourists, except for us, look closely at the photo below, you will see Greg there
Cathedral termite mound
Florence Falls from a high viewing platform
Tabletop Swamp
Tolmer Falls
Some speccy looking cliffs
For the fidiots amongst us
Greenant Creek
Us at Wangi Falls
Pano at Wangi Falls
View from the top of the climb at Cascades
Cascades hike elevation prfile
The awesome Cascades
Wendy's arty shot for the day titled 'Regeneration'
Zebra stone
Drone shot of some of Batchelor
Drone shots of the van park
Our van is the third one from the bottom, cruiser parked in front.
