Leaving Darwin for our Top End Tour with the FIFO Grey Nomads: first planned stop Litchfield National Park; first real stop - massive road side cathdral termite mound for closer examination.
We were heading into Litchfield to see the sights and first on the list was the unusual magnetic termite mounds. They are really thin, and all line up north - south, so that they avoid the harshest of the suns rays. Looking out into a great field of them was something like looking at a graveyard full of grey headstones. Quite striking. The magnetic mounds are only on the floodplains in certain places in the park, the more common cathedral mounds are found all over the place but obviously not all of them are the impressive size of the one seen above.
Next stop of the day was Tolmer falls. We "encouraged" Mum and Dad do the walk down to the lookout with us, which was a little over one kilometre return. It was also pretty impressive to look over the side of the cliff at the emerald green waters at the bottom of the gorge. We nearly lost Dad on the way down. As I walked back to see what was keeping him, the further I got, the more visions crowded into my head of him slumped by the path somewhere just around the corner. I finally caught up with him coming out of some dense brush. It turned out he was just going off the beaten track to get that one special shot of the view south, into the distance.
We all made it back to the car happy and healthy, and moved on to Wangi falls for lunch. There were a lot of people there, but we managed to secure a spot on the grass to have our picnic, with a couple of handy stones just nearby for the folks to sit on. It was a warm day and a swim in the beautiful pool was definitely on the cards. Grandma's dive on entering the pool was astounding in it's timing and grace. I spent the first five minutes of my swim with the goggles on, looking for some old guys caravan keys that he had dropped somewhere between the falls and the bank! Poor old fella, I didn't spot anything other than a few fish and a couple of fallen trees.
We got back to the van in time to have a nice dinner and a chat before we did Sascha's overflowing drink ceremony for his birthday which was much enjoyed by everybody.
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