Roadtrip - Litchfield / Katherine

Litchfield
On the drive to Litchfield we got to see a massive piece of uranium mining equipment being moved. It was so big that it took up more than 1 lane on the road. (It’s a small two lane road to begin with …) We also mistakenly thought that we could stop in little townships such as Palm Creek, or slightly bigger townships, like Adelaide River to restock, proving that we were foolish naïve tourists! They were … small. Adelaide River was home to the Commonwealth war graves and a rather deadly green poisonous spider that made Spaz move very very quickly.

A brine washer being transported to the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu

In Litchfield we saw two types of termite mounds, cathedral and magnetic. The cathedral ones were HUGE, taller than Spaz and the magnetic ones were cool as they were flat, built north south to limit the amount of sun exposure. The little rain that fell in the afternoon lulled us into thinking that we weren’t going to get a storm but we were WRONG!!!!

Magnetic termite mounds

Cathedral termite mound

Due to the high heat and humidity plus the sleeping in a tent = little and disturbed sleep each night, so we decided that we would ‘get a room’ in Litchfield so that we could fully recharge, sleep well and eat well. We couldn’t have timed this decision any better than we did ... as in Litchfield we got to observe our 2^nd massive monsoon storm. This storm was BIG!! The rain fell heavily for over 2 hours and the electrical storm lasted for nearly 4 hours, taking the power out a few times. We sat inside and watched as the poor kangaroos in the paddocks outside our door tried to keep their backs to the storm.

Australians are shorter than Swedes

Skippy the bush kangaroo

The next day the waterfalls were flowing beautifully, Florence falls was a lovely double waterfall but was very crowded so we went off to Wangi falls for a swim. Finally a place where we could swim, heaven. The water was so clean and so warm that we didn’t want to get out, we could have stayed there forever, alas there was a long drive ahead of us.

Florence falls

Wangi falls

Katherine

Katherine was an eye opener and we weren’t even there on a Thursday (pension day). The ‘locals’ in town sure made their presence felt, very noisy! We visited Nitmiluk National Park and Katherine Gorge. Unfortunately the lookout walk was closed and the canoes had all been hired so we took the river cruise past the rock faces and cliffs and it was stunning. On the cruise we saw a crocodile cage in the river and its door was shut. On the way back downstream the tour boat driver went close to see what it was, thankfully it was just a 1.5m freshwater crocodile so it was safe for the House of Spaz to enter the water and have a swim after the cruise. (Freshwater crocs ain’t nothing to worry about ... MOST of the time.) Again, the water was so refreshing, clean and warm and we didn’t want to get out.

A lone tree