Litchfield has some beautiful waterfalls and swimming spots – all very (read way too) popular. We stopped at Florence Falls where cars had filled up all the parking spots for trailers, so we took the bus parking spot. This was not a good sign for a quite dip in the pools. Because then the bus arrived!

It’s only a short walk down to the pool in the pic above, and we swam over and got pummelled under the falls. There’s also a crazy guy in the photo jumping off the top of the falls.
Below is a not so crazy Harry (umm….) where we went swimming.

We moved on to Buley Rockhole just a few kilometres away, where the car park was also full. Another Bad Sign. It’s a series of cascading waterfalls connected to Florence Falls by a walking track through a monsoon forest.
Unfortunately it was super packed here:

Litchfield NP is only 90 minutes’ drive from Darwin, so it gets a lot of local day trippers. Add to that that is was a Sunday, and no school the next day, and you know you won’t be having a wilderness experience here.
The camping sites were all full, so we camped just outside the National Park. Unfortunately the mosquitos followed me there, and have made another well planned assault on me.

It doesn’t quite feel right camping in a city, so it was nice to hit the road and head to Litchfield National Park.
There are many bush fires around this time of year across the Top End, right through to the Kimberley. It’s a natural phenomenon, and regenerates the bush. You can often see the smoke in the distance, and it contributes to some beautiful sunsets. Today we saw a fire right next to us on the road entering Litchfield NP. But we also saw the Whistling Kites gathered en masse ready to feast on the wildlife scurrying out of the fire’s path. It was lunch time for them! Quite a spectacle.

We stopped to see the unique “magnetic” termite mounds that are only found here in the Northern Territory.
These termites, although blind, build their mounds aligned north-south, so that they always have one side in the shade. These are only found here, across these black soil plains. It’s a big contrast to the other mounds we have been seeing since somewhere near Tennant Creek that are built by Cathedral Termites.

They have just got bigger and bigger since then!

Some 50 years ago, a man who lived right on the harbour at Doctor’s Gully began to feed the fish at high tide. Over time, more and more fish came for the treat, including many that would never be so close to shore. This private residence now makes a tidy earner from allowing the public to feed the thousands of fish that swim in at high tide each day. It’s quite a Darwin institution. The boys loved it. There were Green Milkfish, Catfish, Black Mullet, Toad fish (fat ones) and a big Potato Cod.

Can’t do a townie session and not get some historical education, so off we went to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. They had an excellent display about Cyclone Tracy.
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We’d heard it would be busy on the tourist scene in Darwin at this time of year. So we called ahead on our way into the Big Smoke to book a site at a caravan park – just in case. Little did we know that “calling ahead” in Darwin means at least a few weeks ahead. After four parks were totally booked out, we found another place on the net, way up the north end of town. It wasn’t too flash, and had a truck load of permanents, but at least we had a place to set up Trevor. I think I know why this one wasn’t suggested in Lonely Planet.
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Some things are there to make us wonder. Such as the naming of the East Alligator, South Alligator and North Alligator Rivers. Not an alligator in sight. And now it’s the Adelaide River riddle. Just near Darwin. Mmm, things work differently in the Territory.
So to the Adelaide River…..just up the road from the mosquito fest at the South Alligator River. Here, there are a number of operators running large boats along the river, feeding the multitude of crocodiles meat from a rope held over the water. The crocs jump up for the free feed and the tourists are amazed. And we were amazed indeed.

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