When I last left you we had just made it across the Barkly Highway and stumbled into a Roadhouse just onto the Stuart Highway. We were in the NT and ready to start our Top End adventure. This is very much a travel journal type post and probably burdensome on some of the detail. I won’t be offended if you just skip to the pictures.
Day 16 (1 August) – Three Ways to Mataranka
The drive to Mataranka was mercifully shorter than the previous day but far less interesting. It was single lane, 130km/h speed limit but trees lined the highest the whole way so there was nothing to look at. We got into Mataranka at 3pm and pulled into Little Roper Stock Camp. It’s this small family run campground on a property with many different animals. This gives it a very different vibe to your average caravan park with their lined, ubiquitous sites. This was also the first place we had been to where families actually outnumbered the grey nomads and our kids loved it. Tentative at first, they eventually elbowed their way into the games (there was a central makeshift playground of sorts) and eventually Aubrey was in tears when we had to leave in the morning.
The one photo Kynie and I took between us was of the kids having a great time enjoying being not in the car, drawing pictures. If you look closely, Aubrey has drawn a caravan and Brooklyn has drawn a crocodile.
Day 17 – Mataranka to Katherine
One of the draw cards of Little Roper Stock Camp — not that were knew it at the time — is their tradition of making “Johnny cakes” each morning for $2 each. They are made of a cornflour dough and are shallow fried, eaten with things like jam and honey. Kind of like a cross between a scone and a pancake. They were Delicious.
Straight after this they opened their reptile enclosure and let all the kids have a little hold of some of their reptiles. Brooks wasn’t really interested and Lily was doing her own thing (as she does), but Aubrey was all over it. She had a hold of a blue tongue skink, a small turtle, another lizard, a baby snake, then she and I held a 3m python.
It was a bit over an hour to Katherine and we got in about midday. We found our friends and travel buddies, the Burgoynes, there, having just finished their grocery shop after their 17 day long trip along the Gibb River Road. They came from the West after 3 and a half months around the WA coast and we came from the east, met in the middle and are now going to down the guts with them. We filled up the fridge, bought me some summer pajamas because we wildly underestimated how warm the nights on this part of the trip would be (knowing the southern and central part will be freezing). After that it was 25 minutes out to Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park caravan park for a chill afternoon and long overdue catch ups.
Day 18 – Katherine
What’s the first thing that a normal person would do when waking up on their first morning in beautiful Katherine Gorge? Drive back into town for Parkrun? Because that’s what Matt and I did. Matt has just picked up running on this trip after realising He should probably exercise a bit while on holiday for 6 months, and I am looking for any opportunity to run to help reduce the level of de-training I’ll experience. I was happy to run it in under 22 minutes, after only getting out for a handful of short runs so far on the trip and Matt hit his PB.
In the afternoon we decided after being here for 24 hours we should probably take a peek at the gorge, so we took the shortest walk possible in the heat up to a lookout not far from the visitor centre. It was only 900m each way but the kids made sure to complain the whole way. There’s going to be bigger compulsory walks than this so they have a way to go yet. We rewarded them with a swim when we got back and the adults partook in the pool bar situation. We stayed on and had dinner at the pool to close out another successful day in the NT.
Day 19 – Edith Falls
This morning we headed out to the other side of the national park to Edith Falls, which is about an hour’s drive from where we were staying at the gorge. Edith Falls sits on the Edith River and is an impressive multi tiered waterfall system. The bottom has a large pool (150m swim from the shore to the falls) with the largest waterfall, but we walked the round trip to the upper falls, which was far more impressive. This part was several large rock pools surrounded by large rocky formations.
We swam and we climbed but Kynie climbed so far around that it was (at least at the time) seemed easier to jump down than climb back. While true, and at only about 2m high, she did land awkwardly and earned herself some decent bruises. Matt and I climbed up beside the waterfall and found another large, calm, pool. We dove in and swam to the other side, climbed some more rocks and found another pool. We figured we could keep doing this so turned at this point satisfied with our exploration.
It was about a 900m walk up and another 1.4km to complete the loop down. On the way back to the caravan park we stopped at the Katherine Hot Springs, which is right in town and where we did Parkrun a couple of days ago. The springs sit on the river and has a gentle flow. The kids played and we all floated down and felt quite refreshed in from the fresh, warm waters.
Day 20 Nitmiluk Gorge
Today we finally got out into the gorge on a boat for a tour. Katherine Gorge is broken up into several gorges, each separated by rocks that boats can’t traverse. So we jumped on a boat and headed up the first gorge. The scenery is incredible and the gorge is so long. We saw 2 saw freshwater crocs swimming this gorge and although they aren’t a massive threat to people, they can’t guarantee that there aren’t salties, so you can’t swim or canoe here. At the end of this gorge we had a short walk, past some Aboriginal rock art and hopped on boat number 2 for gorge number 2.
This gorge was slightly narrower and equally spectacular. We swapped boats again to ride up gorge 3, which was shorter and did the whole thing in reverse. When we got back to the gorge 1-2 transition, we had a swim in the beautiful flowing waters of the Katherine River. After lunch I took myself off to an Aboriginal art gallery. I’m not much into art, but I love Aboriginal art and I had a great time just wandering the gallery myself. The pictures were beautiful and I even picked a few favourites.
Day 21 – Katherine
Although we had booked 6 nights, we decided this would be our last day and that we’d booked one too many for how much there is to see in the area. In fact, even today’s activities weren’t originally planned. First thing was the Katherine Outback Experience, which was an interactive show with a horse trainer (and semi-famous country music artist, Tom Curtain) who basically spent 2 hours showing us how he breaks in a horse and trains dogs to round up animals. It was a fascinating. The kids also got a good opportunity to feed some animals, something they love doing.
We had a quick carpark lunch and headed 15 minutes down the road to Cutta Cutta Caves. We’ve now seen quite a few different cave systems around Australia and abroad. This was a long tunnel cave. It stretched for 750 metres but as it gets quite humid towards the back, the tour turns around after 250. There were some unusual features though: some stalactites were shiny and crystalline, which I hadn’t seen before, and there were also roots sneaking in through the rock roof from the surface.
Day 22 – Umbrawara Gorge
Today was pack up day, but I got up early and went for a run on one of the trails around the gorge. Because of the nature of the gorge, there is a lookout about 1km from the caravan park but the next interesting thing is 4ks away so most of the walks are a minimum 8ks. I picked Butterfly Gorge Trail, which was a 12km trail. The trail surface was very varied and in some parts could not be run due to to uneven, anle-breaking rocks etc. The trail took me right down through a gorge crack to the water level of the main gorge and I could see right down the gorge where the boat went days before. The rising sun was so bright though and was shining right down the gorge at me. So the photos sucked but it was a most enjoyable run.
After packing up we went into Katherine to top up on groceries and water, abut when we filled the caravan water tank we realised there was a crack in the output pipe of one of the water holding tanks. This meant a trip to Reece plumbing and some troubleshooting to work out what regular pipe fittings will fit our caravan parts. But we got it sorted for $50 and Matt helped me install it (by doing 100% if the work God bless).
We were a bit delayed but were on our way, got to our overnight campground called Pussycat Flats Racecourse, did zero setting up and headed off down a dirt track to Umbrawara Gorge. There was lots of caution from everyone (guide books, online information sites, locals, road signs) saying how bad the road is, advising not to tow caravans to the campsite because it is 4WD only and high difficulty. In the end, it was no worse than the dirt roads coming out of Lawn Hill (which was 3 hours of rocky roads, on which we towed) and we would have been fine for half an hour on it.
Anyway, to get the gorge we had to walk along the creek, initially on a paved path and eventually we were rock hopping over boulders but it was worth it to swim in the waterhole at the end. On the way back we found a pub for dinner called the Lazy Lizard, which, for a small town was absolutely hopping, possibly because it was attached to a caravan park.
Day 23 – Litchfield National Park
The drive from Pine Creek to Litchfield Safari Park (a private campground inside the national park) was about 2.5 hours. We stopped at Batchelor for fuel before entering the park, but we were stopped on the way into town by a random group of horses. Apparently this is a bit of a thing there, with signs saying look out for wild horses.
We had a quick stop at a local park which has a replica of a Czech castle constructed by a local town gardener in the 1970s who became frustrated with the rocks that the castle now sits on. We had lunch at Litchfield Outback resort (where the fuel stop was) and made it to the campground just in time for a swim and happy hour.
Day 24 – Florence Falls and Buley Rockhole
Our first day in Litchfield took us to the spot with the best reputation. This was a cracking day in the sun. Buley Rockhole is a series of cascading falls and rockpools on Florence Creek. We and the kids had so much fun jumping, sliding and swimming all over the pools.
Just down the creek is Florence Falls. Kynie and Bel walked from Buley to Florence while the rest of us drove. We had lunch at the picnic area and walked down 135 stairs to get to the plunge pool at the bottom. The falls are quite large and the pool is deep, which makes it perfect for jumping into from the rocks. Matt and I both jumped from a rockthat’s probably 5m high for a bit of fun. Thankfully the intelligent people at Parks NT built an easier path back to the carpark that wound 1km around the falls instead of us having to drag 4 kids back up 135 steps.
Day 25 – Lost City, Tolmer Falls, Wangi Falls
Three different activities today that varied again from yesterday. But first up we found a place nearby that had good coffee but also has an art gallery. I think we all expected it would be an Aboriginal art gallery and we were kind of right. It was a private gallery but each piece was part of telling God’s story of the world through Aboriginal style artwork. It was very interesting.
We headed out to the Lost City, which is a series of large rock formations in the southern part of the national park that resemble some ruins of an ancient city. It was 11km down a 4wd track that you wouldn’t want to take a sedan down. There was only a handful of cars there while we were there and definitely felt like one of the least visited parts of the park.
Tolmer Falls is just a lookout and was a short walk from the carpark. These were maybe the highest falls we’re likely to see at Litchfield and we were perched up high to view them so there was definitely no swimming at this one (also crocs).
Last stop was Wangi Falls, definitely one of if not the most popular spot in the national park. Wangi Falls is a dual waterfall that falls off a huge cliff face into a plunge pool that we could swim in. It was deep and 120 metre swim across to the falls but we did it, and the kids were helped by pool noodles. We climbed up the falls to a tiny plunge pool and squeezed all 8 of us in it. With none of us able to touch the bottom of it and only 3 noodles to go around (and the 2 smallest had float vests on) it was absolute chaos.
Wangi Falls is a designated swimming spot and they monitor it for crocs and clear them out before opening it each season, however it wasn’t until the next day we learnt that even the locals and rangers won’t swim at this one because they find 300 hatchlings around each wet season!
Day 26 – Sandy Creek Falls
Sandy Creek Falls is along the Reynolds Track, a 4WD track that connects Litchfield to Daly River Road to the south. The track started with a 500mm deep creek crossing which had the water almost up to our bonnet. It was maybe a hundred metres long and turned the corner so you couldn’t actually see the other side.
5ks down the road is Blyth Homestead, where a family used to live as an outstation to a cattle station 25 miles away. The kids would mine tin from the area and the dad would bring supplies every few weeks while working the station. The tin shack left behind is what they lived in. The homestead was a sidetrack and there was another creek crossing to get in and out. This one was shorter but maybe a little deeper.
Another 4 or 5 km down the road we hit the Sandy Creek campsite, from where the walk to the falls start. It’s a 1.7km walk to the falls and it was easily the most challenging walk we’ve made the kids do. There were uneven rocks, a creek to cross, and large rocks to navigate. It took 45 minutes to traverse the track but the destination (at least for the adults) was so so worth it. This was the most spectacular waterfall we’ve come across with a large swimming hole to cool us down in. The water tumbles over 100 metres from a sandstone cliff, changing directions into a cascade toward the bottom. Obviously we swam over to it but although if seemed very climbable, it was not jump-able, and climbing down looked very sketchy. There was another good jump rock though so we made good use of that.
The drive out was just as much fun as the drive in. Single lane 4wd track with plenty of turns and plenty of bumps to navigate, but was still a pretty easy drive for the novice 4WDer. We re-crossed the creek and pumped our tyres back up and headed back to camp for happy hour. (We had some air out of our tyres to make it easier going over the corrugations and rocks in the road).
Day 27 – Walker Creek
There was one walk and river left that we could do in Litchfield but we felt we pushed the kids pretty hard yesterday with the 3.4km walk in the heat and didn’t want to give them anything too difficult again today. With all the research online we still didn’t have a good grasp on what Walker Creek would be like and how long it would be.
Our solution: Matt and I went out for an early morning reconnaissance mission by running the 4km grade 3 track to see how worth it it would be. It turns out that was a great choice because the best swimming spot was only 700m down the track and the terrain was straightforward. We went back for breakfast, got everyone ready and headed straight back and had a lovely time swimming in the creek amidst a small waterfall. And for some of it, we had the spot all to ourselves.
By now we’d seen pretty well everything we’d come to see in Litchfield so we headed back to the campsite for lunch and a rest before heading back to our unanimously favourite spot for the afternoon: Buley Rockhole, where the kids confidence continued to increase in jumping off higher and higher things into the water. Tomorrow we leave Litchfield and head north to Dundee Beach and Darwin.
