Judy & Brian Tour Oz: Litchfield NT

We went out adventuring today, took ourselves back to Litchfield National Park, which is down the road about 100km or so. We went there once before with a tour, which stopped, along with all their mates, at the termite mounds, the Florence falls, Buley Rockhole and Wangi Falls. This time we thought we'd be clever and start at the other end and work back, thus avoiding the tourists and tour groups.

We even detoured into Batchelor for a quick look and went to the info place, which was a box on the side of the road with two old blokes in attendance: one to tell you which brochure to take and the other to make sure you signed the visitor book.

Anyhow, we had the quickest of looks and bolted right away, first stop though had to be the Rum Jungle. When i was a kid at school. and Judy confirms this, the Rum Jungle was a big deal and they even told us about it at school. Speaking of which, we had these atlases in school, and on the page for Australia, there were pictures around the outside of a few of our outstanding feature, and i'm damn sure The Rum Jungle was one of them. It was a Uranium mine, probably the first one in Australian and maybe the world, who knows. You have to put this in perspective: Kakadu didn't exist, the Opera House didn't exist, greenies were something that you blew out of your nose. Yellow cake must have been that other type of cake apart from chocolate. They were simple times. The Rum Jungle Mine was reputedly the largest construction in the NT, now that is saying something.

Now of course, the Uranium mine is long gone, it's a lake and the locals use it for boating, fishing and even scuba diving (one just has to read the Wikipedia article about Rum Jungle, it's a wonder we don't glow in the dark from just having driven down there)

Our immediate goal was the Litchfield Cafe where we expected to get some lunch. Ho Ho. Closed. We pushed on and into the Litchfield Resort and the Litchfield Tourist Precinct. They should be ashamed of themselves. Let me describe it to you: it is a dump.

We retraced our steps the 4km or so to Wangi Falls, where we found a brand new cafe, mystery of the closed cafe solved. Wangi Falls is the #1 attraction and was jam-packed, having a cafe here is a no-brainer. No wonder the Litchfield Cafe has gone under.

Having fed ourselves, we decided to revert to plan A and go further up the road to the Cascades, do them and then come back to Wangi. The Cascades: First thing you see is a handful of cars instead of a shopping mall car park on a long weekend eve, and a sign that says, 'Lower Cascades 1.3km, Upper cascades 1.7km'.

On advise from a return walker, we chose the upper cascades, based on an easier but longer walk. The track started going up and up and underfoot were these loose large sharp stones. We doubled back and took our chances with the lower cascade track. Easy as can be at first, then it turned to loose soft sand. Not so bad, bit of a slog. But then it turned to clambering over the upturned sharp edges of rock strata and, well in thongs, it was a bit of a struggle. Finally we made it to the 'cascade'. a small waterfall and a smallish pool, but hey, we were hot and bothered and in we went. The water was fabulous, could have stayed for hours, but the nagging thought of that return walk...

We made it back safe and sound, Judy is knackered though, but game enough to give Wangi Falls a go. Wangi falls is quite different, its an easy stroll through a small parkland and an effortless fall into the huge pool with the two waterfalls as a backdrop. Could have stayed there for hours...

We left about 5pm for the 100km or so drive back to Darwin, picking up takeaway food on the way home at Palmerston. No cooking dinner tonight! Tiring, but a good day out.