Onto Darwin....I'm not going to recommend the the caravan park that we stayed in at Lee Point....they charge too much and I'd rather have a wash in a bucket than use their showers :( enough said...Daz got 2 new tyres for the truck and we bought a new camera lense that zooms from 18 - 270 so we don't have to change lenses every 5 minutes now.
Next day we hired a boat and went fishing in the harbour...no fish but we came home with a beautiful muddie and some blue swimmers which we had for dinner that night yummmmm. Tip for young players....don't let your crab traps out of sight....I left a beautiful big Jennie in a trap to attract a buck....two hours later she had been swiped :-(
We headed out of Darwin and towards Litchfield NP where we hooked up with the Summers Family again. We checked out the magnitic termite mounds (weird how they only occur in 1 paddock) and then set up camp at Florence Falls for 2 nights in some pretty good camp grounds. About 400m and 135 steep steps from the campsite is the falls dropping into a lovely plunge pool which was teaming with European backpackers and sooty grunters.
A short drive away we visited te Lost City (not quite as good as the Southern Lost City at Limmen NP)....but worth a look. The kids loved climbing the rocks and exploring the little caves and archways. Then we moved on to Tolmer falls lookout ( also very good to look at). Onto Wangi falls....this is 2 spectacular waterfalls flowing into a large plunge pool. National Parks have made a lovely path and park next to the plunge pool so the grey nomads can hobble right to the edge of the pool and use the very civilised steps and handrail to ease their frail old bodies into the water:-) OK so it's it's a bit touristised but still good for a swim. If you're not too old and frail you can put your goggles on and swim to the waterfalls on the far side. You can swim beneath the falls and get smashed by the water....that was definately a bit of fun!
We checked out the Bamboo Creek tin mine (no longer operational) and picked up heaps of shiny bits of what we thought at the time was tin. It was here that we decided to take some 'tin' back to camp and try to melt it into an arrow head to make a spear - what a cool idea!! (Commence Nat carving an arrow head mould with her pocket knife in a lump of wood while sitting in the car)
Next stop...Cascades for a swim....this track starts out pretty good but becomes a leech, golden orb, and mozzie infested nightmare near the end where you need to put your thongs into low range to make it to the underwhelming swimming hole....verdict....nah give it a miss.
Back at camp we put on best Bear Grillis impersonations and got out the Bunsen burner and tried to melt our 'tin'...but it seems the pretty shiny stuff was actually mica and doesn't melt. Not to be beaten we melted some lead sinkers and poured it into the arrow head mould. It made a rudimetry arrow head that was unsharpen-able....and the kids had a great time messing around with the spear (no animals or people were harmed!!)
With Litchfield conqured we're heading back down the road to Katherine where we'll be heading for Gregory NP to hook up with the our Friends, the Nuske Nomads!
