Borroloola to Darwin

We spent a day relaxing in the Borroloola Caravan Park after 3 big days of dirt driving across the Gulf of Carpenteria. At one point during the day, the lady owner of the van park was mowing the rocks (and a few tuffs of grass) in shorts and thongs, when we suddenly heard an explosive round of cursing. We looked up and had to laugh. She had mowed over a water pipe and water was shooting 4m up in the air... was quite entertaining! 

From Borroloola we headed West to Mataranka. The most exciting thing along this boring road was being pulled over by the police. They wanted to know if we had seen or passed a maroon sedan since leaving Borroloola. We hadn't. A few hundred kms along the way, we pulled into a rest stop for lunch. Whilst munching on our sandwich (that quickly turns to toast in this heat), a maroon sedan pulled in! I, of course, imagine an axe murderer stepping out of the car with a potential body chopped in pieces and stored in the boot. Instead a middle aged, middle class lady emerges has a quick smoke and pushes on. Not before I had taken her number plate and details though! We saw her again, at a servo later in the day and I decided she was not an axe murderer and must not be who the police were looking for. 

Daly Waters was an interesting little town with this souvenir shop and check out inside the pub. Yes, those are signed underwear hanging from the rafters...

So you can imagine our surprise and delight when we pulled into the town of Katherine and found an old friend welcoming us with open arms. Hello Ronald! Mmmmmmm

KATHERINE GORGE

From Katherine we headed 27kms out of town to Katherine Gorge. We were most disappointed! Perhaps we have been spoilt by all we have seen but it just did not compare to Lawn Hill Gorge. The water was the same murky colour as the Hastings River back in Port Macquarie. It was expensive to camp there too.

The one saving grace I will say, is that they had the most beautiful pool area with awesome live music both nights that could be easily heard throughout the campsite. We enjoyed sitting at our camp, listening to the guitar instrumentals and old classics, and watching the thousands of bats fly overhead as the sun disappeared.

We also had a few adorable baby wallabies hanging around our camp - they were so cute. 

LITCHFIELD NATIONAL PARK

As you drive north from Katherine to Darwin, the scenery begins to change (thank goodness as it was becoming quite monotonous). Thousands of small palms and ferns litter the bush, and along with these a noticeable increase in the temperature!

Just south of Darwin is Litchfield NP. We didn't know at all what to expect but we found a real pearl here. It's mostly made up with creeks, rivers and waterfalls, most of which you can safely swim in. These are the Florence Falls...

There was heaps of tourist buses, Europeans driving mental rentals and of course lots of aussies too. We found a place to camp the first night (well it wasn't really a place, but we made it one as everything was full). We decided the next day to try avoid all the tourists and head down a 4WD track to Surprise Creek Falls. The drive was stunning, from palms galore to open grassy marshlands filled with ant mounds that look like giant graveyards...

We learnt that these mounds are called Magnetic ant mounds. They all face the same way to control the temperature inside. They are also really thin side on...this is the front on and side on view of the same mound! amazing little architects those ants!

 

When we stopped to take the above photos of the ant mounds, Geoff noticed the soil we were driving on was sparkly and shiny - it was like it was filled with glitter...

The pearl I mentioned earlier was the Surprise Creek Falls. Imagine a creek on the top of a rock ledge with a 5m waterfall into a round, deep blue pool. From that pool another 5m waterfall into another beautiful deep blue pool about the same size. From that pool, the water slides down the smooth rock like a water slide into a crystal clear lagoon surrounded by palms. This is what we found! The photos don't do it justice, but it'll give you a bit of an idea of the paradise we enjoyed for a few hours... The photo below is the lagoon at the bottom...

This is the next pool up...

And this is the top pool which we basically had all to ourselves, complete with a personal waterfall, spa bath, waterslide and pool. The pool was SO clear yet SO deep. Geoff couldn't reach the bottom. This is Living!!!

It was a 1.5 hour 4WD to get to Surprise Creek Falls which is probably why there were only a few people there. The 4WD track also had a deeper river crossing at the Reynolds River. You can see in the photo below a sand bar island to the right that was the easier way to cross. As Geoff was sussing it out, another 4WD came through and stopped on the sandbar blocking the easier way to cross as we couldn't reverse and neither could they. Geoff was thrilled as he now how to tackle the 100m river crossing without using the sandbar! Figuring there was at least another 4WD there if we ran into trouble we prepared for the crossing. We had learnt at Cape York to occy strap the radiator fan to stop it from moving during a deeper river crossing (as last time it ended up in the radiator). Geoff also walked through the crossing to make sure it was OK. 

'Conrad' (car) and 'Spaceship' (camper trailer) ploughed through it easily! It was GREAT fun too and there was alot of YEEHA'S and WHOOPIES as we made it to the other side...

 As Geoff waded through the crossing prior to driving through he found the best souvenir mostly buried on the river floor...

Before leaving Litchfield NP, we stopped at all the tourist places we hadn't seen along the way out. These were the Wangi Falls (no swimming here today due to potential crocs though).

Leaving Litchfield yesterday afternoon we pushed 130kms North into Darwin. We haven't seen much of the place yet, but what we have seen looks great. We can't wait to explore here!!