Saturday, August 8, 2009

Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory

First of all, why is that I always seem to fall in love with the 'territories'?????? At least this territory is hot compared to the last territory I was at!!

So, Tuesday morning, after working a night shift, I bicycled home and awaited for my friends to come pick me up in there 4WD truck for out 4 day camping trip. I went with a friend from work Troy, his girlfriend Karen who I met while watching the State of Origin with Jeff and Selina, Troy's best mate Steve, and another guy Paul - who was friends with one of Troy and Karen's friends. There was supposed to be about 2 car loads of people going camping, but you know how it all goes, and people started backing out. I was lucky in that I already had 3 of the days off, and just had to switch one shift! So, I got picked up at about 9:30 - after having a nice glass of Bailey's, and hell, why not a beer to start my day! I would be going on no sleep so I might as well make the day interesting. We stopped for some brekky at a roadhouse, then headed on towards Litchfield National Park, 150km's away from Darwin. We arrived to our first waterfall, Florence Falls, which was only a short walk with a bunch of stairs away from the car park. The falls where beautiful - I can never get over them, and there was a small swimming area where we all got in for our first dip in the water of the day. Surprisingly there was not that many people around and we somehow managed to not arrive when there was a tour group! What a difference not being a tour, we try and avoid them! Our next stop was just up from the falls, the creek that actually forms Florence falls. It consists of a bunch of rock pools where you can pick your spot and chill. We went to a few different pools, jumped in a couple of them as they where quite deep, and walked along the bottom of one of them holding a massive rock. I only did that once as I HATE going under water without holding my nose! But I tried it at least, and walked surprisingly further then I thought I would walk. Both Paul, Troy and Steve had the great Olympus underwater camera, so we had fun taking photos of us underwater carrying the rock! Next stop, Wangi falls, a much bigger falls with a bigger pool. We arrived and of course there where a couple of tour groups there - we arrived at lunch time, but the pool was big enough so it didn't matter so much. We swam across to the waterfalls and found this tiny separate pool between the falls that was up on the rocks. It was pretty small and barely fit the 5 of us, but pleasant none-the-less! After about 45 minutes to an hour of hanging out at the falls, we decided we better hit the road. Destination, Kakadu National Park. We where going to stay in Litchfield for the night, however we decided to get lots of the driving done on the first day - mainly because Steve and Paul where hungover, and I was tired from staying up all night working. We took a short cut that took us to the bottom of Kakadu national park, which was a 4WD road, first time I had been 4WD'g, apart from being on tour, which is much different then being on a massive tour bus, and heaps more fun. Well, except that I took my bathing suit top off after the last swim, and had, well, nil support - not the most pleasant on those roads let me tell you! We drove through tons of sand, lots of very rocky roads, and of course, lots of creeks - FUN FUN FUN!!!! Once we got to Kakadu, we decided to take a bit of a detour and head to Douglas Hot Springs for the night. The itinerary wasn't going as planned as we where actually supposed to leave at 7am however Troy was unable to the the vehicle till the morning, which delayed our departure time, which messed up the schedule for the day. BUT, we didn't really mind as we didn't have any place to be at any specific time, so we didn't mind changing up the plan. We arrived at Douglas Hot Springs just at sunset and started setting up camp. Paul had a small tent that he slept in, Tory and Karen had their own swag as did Steve and I - which I borrowed off a friend. Steve and Troy headed down to the hotsprings, and the rest of us set up and got supper on the go. Roast veggies, burgers and steak was the plan. We all cracked a beer, got the fire going and had a pretty damn good supper. Just like on tour! We where all pretty nackered, and I was in bed at like 9pm, and I crashed as soon as my head hit the pillow. I warned the rest that I love my sleep and can pretty much sleep through anything, so they may have to wake me up in the morning, and sure enough, at 7:30, I got a wake up call from Troy, time to get up and get movin'!!














































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