I have heard people say Litchfield National Park is even more beautiful than Kakadu so I was looking forward to exploring and seeing if this was true.
Our first stop was to see the Magnetic Termite Mounds. The termites build the mounds in the North-South direction to minimise heat and maximise cooling. They kind of look like graveyards stacked in a field - it's an eerie sight.
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| Magnetic Termite Mounds |
The largest of the termite mounds is Cathedral Termite Mound, standing over four meters tall. It is pretty crazy to think about little tiny bugs building something so giant and it lasting for centuries.
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| Cathedral Termite Mound |
Next we stopped at Buley Rockholes and Florence Falls. We wanted to find another nice waterfall to take a dip in, but these were both way too crowded. We decided to keep moving.
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| Florence Falls |
It turned out to be a really good thing we didn't stop for longer because just down the main road we got to see six baby emus crossing the road. They were absolutely adorable!
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| Emu family crossing the road |
There were a couple more waterfalls we thought about stopping at but one had a path that was under construction and the other one had an invisible turn off. So we headed to Wangi Falls. It was another pretty spot, but once again too many people. We should have known that would be the case considering the cafe near the car park. With Litchfield being an easy day trip from Darwin, the park was a bit too accessible to the masses.
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| Wangi Falls |
We drove on further and stopped at the Cascades. The parking lot was small with no spaces for tour buses so already it looked promising. The lower pool was a 700 meter hike, but we decided to take the 1 km hike to the upper pool betting that there would be less people. It was a tough hike with mid day sun and little shade, and when we finally got to the pools they were rather small and unexciting. They did have one thing going for them though - no people. We climbed in and cooled off for a bit, enjoying the peace and quiet.
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| The Cascades |
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| The Cascades |
Since we were in the neighbourhood, we walked to the lower pool to see if that was any more spectacular. it was quite pretty, and the handful of people there were manageable. The brown snake, the giant lizard, and the biting mosquitos soon found me fed up with nature and ready for a comfortable car ride back to Darwin. My verdict: hands down Kakadu is better, the spectacular scenery is on a much larger scale and it's harder to get to. It is busy but it's big enough that it didn't feel that crowded, and it's a much more peaceful place.
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| The Cascades - lower pool |
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| Big ol lizard |
We decided to end the trip how we began it - watching the beautiful sunset at Cullen Bay and eating greek salads with giant chunks of feta.
And that's the end of another great trip.
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