3 June 2013 – Litchfield National Park

A big day was planned for today, we were heading into Litchfield National Park to go swimming in all the magnificent waterfalls and trying to fit them all into one day was not going to be easy.  Our first stop was at Tolmer Falls.  You can’t swim as there are a few protected bat species that live here but there is a nice viewing platform to watch the water drop down the sheer rock face.  Next stop was Wangi Falls which is nice and easy.  It’s just a short walk from the car park and virtually straight into the pool of these falls.  The water is crystal clear, refreshing and there is plenty or everyone in this pool.  We swam all the way over to the softer of the two waterfall drops here.  We didn’t stay in too long as we decided that we would do the Wangi Loop Walk which is a 1.7km walk and it went right up into the tree tops before coming back down the other side of the water falls.  Mum stayed behind while we did this strenuous walk and to keep the kids amused along the walk we played a few games with the kids.  Lucky it wasn’t any longer as we’d started to run out of game ideas.  We made our sandwiches here at these falls before moving on to conquer the Cascades.  Little did we know before starting this walk, how far it actually was to get to the best part.  It was a 1.3km walk in, this meant more climbing over rocks, walking across fallen down trees, crossing narrow creeks and admiring the wildlife of birds and spiders while we did it.  It was another great walk and I was really impressed that even mum made it to the cascading waterfall.  There were a few really pretty parts of this walk such as the area of creek that had extremely green water grasses / slime growing in it – thankfully we didn’t need to walk across this section.  The Cascades were not too high and the pool area not too big but we were thankfully the only ones here at the time and had the entire waterfall to ourselves.  We were able to swim to them, climb under them and sit on the ledge beneath them and cool down ready for our walk / climb back out of here and back to the car.  We continued on this time to the most northerly part of Litchfield that we were going to visit, Bamboo Creek Tin Mine.  This was only a small tin mine which operated for about two years around 1906 but it was closed due to the unfavourable wet seasons they had to endure.  Next was a really fun 8kms of 4WD into a place called The Lost City.  This area surprised me… I would have loved to have played hide and seek with the girls but I was too worried that we’d never find each other – or our way out.  It is reminiscent of the ruins of some lost civilisation many years ago.  Tall majestic pillars and wide sandstone caves have formed and weathered by the elements.  We had a few more places we wanted to visit, the next being Florence Falls.  This is probably one of the better known ones and consists of two waterfalls which drop into the one pool.  This is another spectacular falls which takes a bit of effort to get to.  Mum stopped at the viewing platform as the next part was approx. 135 steps to the bottom.  The water was very cool as it is in the shade for much of the afternoon.  We had our cool down swim and then began the climb back up all those stairs.  Fortunately it didn’t take too long.  Our last waterfall for today was Buley Rockhole and this was, for me, the prettiest one that we had visited today.  It was a series of small waterholes with a walking track alongside it so you could pretty much stop and jump in at any point that suited you.  The afternoon sun was shining on parts of it and it was really pretty, and as usual, the water was refreshing and cleansing after our hard days work.  Our final stop on the way out of the national park, was at Magnetic Termite Mounds.  We stopped and had a look but really, we have seen so many driving through the top half of Australia, that we didn’t really need to see any more.  After this massive day, needless to say, we were all going to sleep well tonight!