Litchfield National Park & Darwin

Hi everyone! We’re in Darwin! Our first capital city.... of sorts.

Our trip to Litchfield was beautiful. We saw the Magnetic termite mounds that are flat and narrow, and aligned north south to regulate the inside temperatures. Apparently the instinct to build the mounds facing north is genetic and bred into the colonies. But sometimes a breeding line will have a misdirected compass and build their nests on a different angle. These nests fail and all the ants die, therefore by natural selection, only the ants with good working internal compasses survive to breed! I find this fascinating!

We also visited the Blythe Homestead which has remained untouched since the family left in the 1960’s. The family gave birth to 10 kids on the main homestead, and when they were old enough (like 7 or 8!) they were sent to live at homestead (without parents), getting up in the dark and mining tin in the surrounding rock walls until dark. There was a book of family history and accounts from the children who had no medical attention, no understanding of money, and ate whatever food they grew and preserved for the year! And their father brought them up to think that seeking assistance was weak, so when one sibling’s hand was crushed by a horse, two of them held her down, while the third reset the bones and strapped it! And this continued until late 1960’s which is quite disturbing!

The drive into the homestead was also pretty interesting, as there were a couple of creek crossings on the track. They all had depth markers (with the water level around 40-50cm deep) except for the last one which didn’t have a depth marker. Stuart had a close look before doing it, but given it had been recently used (wet banks on either side) he decided to keep going. Let’s just say that it was a little deeper than the previous ones, with the water just about flowing back over the top of the bonnet! Funnily enough, the visitor book at the homestead had quite a few references to the last water crossing!

Litchfield National Park is full of beautiful waterfalls and rock pools, with all of them full of crystal clear water and fish and bordered by pockets of luscious tropical vegetation which is quite in contrast with the surrounding dry savannah landscape. We visited Sandy Falls, Wangi Falls, Florence Falls and camped at the campground near the Buley Rockhole. They are all spectacular and being only an hour and a half from Darwin, it’s no wonder that camping space at Litchfield was at a minimum (we arrived at around 9:30am and had to try two campgrounds before we found an empty spot!) Given it was a Saturday when we left, we passed a steady stream of cars flowing in for teh weekend. The local paper reckons the visitation at Litchfield will go up as they have introduced entrance fees for Kakadu - $25 per person!



DARWIN
(where not much has changed since the 1980’s and their favourite architecture colour scheme is turquoise)

Actually, I really like this place. Its small and friendly with a beautiful coastline and plenty of creative people. The market scene is superb! With 5 or 6 different markets on every weekend, each full of homemade artistic creations and so much yummy food! At the Mindil Markets, we loved the thai green paw-paw salad so much we went back for more. And of course we had to try the Road Kill Cafe! I ate the impaled crocodile (shish-kebab) which tasted like a mix between fish and chicken, whilst my meat loving partner couldn’t pass up a Buffalo rib! Needless to say, it was huge, and meaty! And I still shake my head when I think about it.

The markets also had a quirky stall selling hats made out of recycled truck canvas. I’ve bought one and its awesome – it still smells like oil and diesel!!! Ha ha! I love it!

I have found some unique businesses in town, and bought a beautiful dress from the Raw Cloth boutique, along with two metres of fabric hand-printed by ladies from the Aboriginal community of Maningrida in Arnhem Land. I am now busy hand sewing a new dress!

Unfortunately, Stuart has come down with a virus and has been bed ridden for 3 days now. So we have been taking it easy around camp and have extended our stay in Darwin until Monday. Besides getting him to the doctors, and making sure he has good food and painkillers, I thought it might cheer him up to know that another travelling musician was performing for free in the caravan park camp kitchen! A little walk, fresh air, change of scenery! As we sat down surrounded by only 3 or 4 other people, our entertainer turned on his synthesiser, made some really bad jokes and started strumming his tinny guitar and singing anything from Delihla to Pretty Woman. The volume was so loud we couldn’t even hear each other talk and we were slowly being surrounded by enthusiastic grey nomads settling into their camp chairs ready for a sing-a-long! It did however, have the desired effect of cheering Stuart up, because he sat there grinning at me as I cringed and pleaded with him to go back to camp! All the while, he sat there shaking his head and stating that watching my torment was the best part of his otherwise miserable day!!!