Days 47 and 48
Day 47
After a not so restful night due to the resident rooster, Laurence, who loves to crow extremely early in the morning, we headed off to Adelaide River.
We were planning on staying at a caravan park here, but after a not so nice reception, we headed to the Pub.
We didn’t head here to drink (it was 8am), we headed here to see ‘Charlie’ the buffalo that became famous for his role, being hypnotised by Mick Dundee in the Crocodile Dundee movies. Charlie died in 2000 and is now proudly standing on the bar at the Adelaide River Inn Pub.
So we headed for Coomalie Creek. Our ‘French’ friends had told us of this place Coomalie Creek RV Park, so we headed there. For $20 a night/powered for the 4 of us, it was pretty good. The amenities were clean and there was even a dump point. The downside was no phone/internet unless you walked up the hill to the house, which we never had time to do, unfortunately.
After setting up our caravan, we headed straight into Litchfield National Park. As we only had half a day, we went to a couple of the closest attractions.
First up were the magnetic termite mounds. How these blind termites know which way to create their mounds is beyond me, lining them north to south apparently to minimise the exposure to the sun. On the signs were an amazing image of what the inside of these termite mounds look like. Our boys were fascinated by these.
They weren’t as tall as some of the cathedral termite mounds we had been seeing, but the way they were all lined up in this field was amazing.
Across the road was a massive Cathedral Termite Mound that you are allowed to touch. Of course our boys had to touch the mound, but then they were happy to have their photo taken in front of this massive structure.
Next it was off to the Florence Falls Lookout. This spectacular double falls has a short lookout walk as well as a longer walk to get down to swim in the falls. With the sign saying 350 steps down to the falls, we gave swimming a miss as we knew we were swimming at the next place.
Then it was off to the Buley Rockhole. This was the one stop our boys had been anticipating from the start. They wanted to swim! With a series of waterfalls and rock holes, you were spoilt for choice of where to swim. So we had a go at a few different spots.
After a few hours of swimming it was back to the van to have a good night rest before returning to Litchfield the following day.
Day 48
Today we started off with a dirt, corrugated road into the Lost City. We did let down our tyres, though no one else seemed to and we were glad we did. It was a very bumpy road and the corrugations were quite bad in some places.
The Lost City, situated approximately 10.5km off the main Litchfield Park Road, is a huge collection of sandstone pillars resembling the ruins of a long lost city.
You could spend hours there, with so many different areas waiting to be explored.
After another bumpy drive out, we headed Tolmer Falls. There is a short walk to a lookout here, which was amazing. You aren’t allow to swim in the plunge pool as you may disturb the colonies of rare and protected Ghost Bats and Orange Horseshoe Bats.
Then it was off to Wangi Falls. Wangi Falls is a very popular visit attraction. Here, two falls feed a large freshwater pool.
Wangi Falls had a great area on the left hand side where there were many rocks under the water making it not too deep, so the boys could walk out nearly to the waterfall.
It was a very big swimming hole, though the amount of people there made it look very small.
After an amazing couple of days in Litchfield National Park, we all had an early night, making sure to get plenty of rest for our next adventure.
Lap of Oz: Day 46 Edith Falls