Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Road Trip – Day 66 (May 20)

Today we left Darwin and headed for Batchelor, about 80 kms south of Darwin. From here we spent the afternoon in Litchfield National Park while Kurgan spent the afternoon with Denise & John. The first water falls we saw were the Florence Waterfalls. we looked at these from the viewing platform and did not venture down the 134 steps to the bo0ttom of the falls.

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We moved on to the Wangi Falls where there were lots of people with children on the lawns & swimming in the pools created by the falls. The water was very cold.

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We had lunch at Wangi Falls and after viewing the beautiful falls we headed back to the caravan park, but first checked out these ENORMOUS termite mounds which are aligned north/south in order to control the temperature within the mound. This one was just over 5 metres (16 foot) tall and was estimated at being 50 years old.

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When we got back to the Banyan Caravan Park we took up the manager’s offer of free coffee and biscuit. Here are Viv and Denise with John in the background.

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I wonder how many sunsets can a person take, then I see something to catch the eye and there is another photo in my collection. In Litchfield National Park, as in other National Parks in the Northern Territory, the rangers practice patchwork burning during March to June. This follows what the Indigenous people have done for hundreds of years, just burning small patches of land in order to promote new growth and food.

The day we visited Litchfield, they had been doing some burning off which left a strong smoke haze across the sky. This is the sunset about 5 minutes before the sun went down over the horizon.

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