Litchfield National Park - Day 1

I can see why Litchfield National Park is often preferred over Kakadu. It is very accessible to 2WD and the waterfalls and plunge pools are not big walks. It is also a very different type of National Park to Kakadu and other arid region parks. It is much more similar to the National Parks of NSW and Qld, in that there are more forests, waterfalls and rivers. The two main waterfalls in Litchfield – Wangi and Florence Falls – are accessed by bitumen roads and short walks. Gunlom Falls in Kakadu is accessed by 36km of very corrugated dirt road and to swim at Jim Jim Falls requires a two hour drive over dirt road, one way. Most of the things to do are easily accessible, and even those on dirt roads, like the Lost City and Blythe Homestead, are only around 10km of dirt.

The Lost City
This is 4WD only as it is 10.5km of dirt road and needs a high clearance vehicle. When we were there the road was rough but not terrible. It is an interesting drive in, through a nice  mix of vegetation. Every so often there was a really pretty purple flowering plant and another one was just a stalk with red flowers blooming on it. We passed only 3 cars so it felt quite isolated. The Lost City is an interesting set of rock formations, the result of weathering and erosion. When you walk among them, you can almost imagine (with a bit of imagination) that the remaining rock structures are the remnants of ancient buildings.

We found an elephant in the rocks 

Some of the structures stand many stories high (that's Greg at the base of one to give you some idea)

Florence Falls
This twin falls is very pretty, even at the end of the dry season. There are two walk options – one via the picnic area and river, which is 1.1km, or a shorter walk that involves 160 steps. We opted for the shorter walk and Rory managed the steps himself on the way down. (Greg carried him all the way up... such a great daddy). The plunge pool is surrounded by monsoonal rainforest and was very cool and pretty.

The plunge pool was quite cold and very refreshing after the walk down in the heat. There were a few people there but the plunge pool is big enough to share. There were freshwater fish swimming around us and Tilda managed to touch one, which she was so happy with. Greg swam out to both the waterfalls, which were still moving quite a lot of water, so was a bit of a challenge.

The kids weren't particularly keen to swim in the deep plunge pool, so they played in a shallower pool downstream. Rory found a bit of waterlogged wood that he pretended was a crocodile and floated that around quite happily. Tilda was looking for pretty stones. Every since our visit to the NT Rare Rocks shop, she has been quite interested in finding her own pretty stones. There were some very pretty siltstone rocks on the side of the path down to the plunge pool, some of which looked like zebra stone and okapi siltstone. Unfortunately they were in a National Park, and way too big, so we couldn't bring any home with us. Tilda found a really interesting rock in the bottom of the shallow pool her and Rory played in.

Termite Mounds
We visited the tourist termite mound site, which had some really interesting information about termites. The main attraction are the Magnetic Termites. These termites build on a north-south orientation so that their mound is exposed to the minimal amount of heat stress. Access to the Magnetic Termite mounds is restricted at this site to a built up walkway that keeps you a fair distance from the mounds, although it is obvious that people have driven off the road on the other side in order to get closer to some. From the walkway, these termite mounds look like a big graveyard filled with dull grey headstones. The Magnetic Termites are such an attraction as they only inhabit this region (I think) and the fact they build along the lines of magnetic north is unique.

The other termites found throughout Litchfield are Cathedral Termites. These termites build very magnificent and very large mounds and are pretty amazing too. Their mounds grow up to 5m in height!