Australia: Litchfield to Katherine

So I hear you all asking why after hostels for 3 months have we decided to go oh naturelle and do the campervan thing for 5 weeks.  With Western Australia being 10 times bigger than the UK and sparsely populated compared with the east coast, it would have taken far more planning and time to cover this area using public transport and we also hope that doing it this way would be a little bit cheaper.  Also the freedom of being able to do exactly what we want and when we want to do it was a big draw.

Litchfield National Park is one of the smallest national parks in Northern Australia at only 1,500 sq kms and has a single tarmac road running its length.  Our first nights stay was in a campsite just outside of the park near a small town called Bachelor.  We awoke after a full 12 hrs sleep (easy to do when it gets dark at 7.30pm and you don’t have a telly) refreshed and ready for a days exploring, we were going to enjoy this campervan malarkey.  We had breakfast outside sat under an already blazing sun and cloudless sky, then packed up the van and off we went to explore the park.

Rather than looking in our trusty guide book and heading for things we wanted to see, we decided to take a slightly different approach for a change.  Basically, we would drive until we saw a brown tourist sign and then turn off the road and take a look.  That the first great thing about here….everything worth seeing (and even those that aren’t) are signposted so it makes it really easy.  Our first brown sign was to be the magnetic termite mounds.  As we drove into the car park, a park ranger was just setting up for her free talk about the termites and their home.  The termites build these large monolithic homes containing the Queen, the King and thousands of builders and soldier termites.  All the mounds (hundreds of them) are arranged on the plain so that the thin edges face north to south, meaning the wide area faces east and west.

Originally it was thought that it was something to do with temperature control within the mound but now they think it might be more to do with the sun being able to dry it quicker when they get wet in the rainy season.  It was an incredible sight to see so many over such a large area, all at differing heights.  There were also a number of Cathedral termite mounds here too which were just huge.  Quite amazing to think that such tiny little creatures like termites could make something so big just from soil, spit and sh*t.

Our next stop was a short walk along some fresh water rockpools and then a little swim in the pool of a waterfall, Florence Falls.  As we drove into the car park there were yet more warning signs about the salties and whether it is safe to swim.  Using the old adage, safety in numbers, and seeing plenty of other people splashing about with apparent joy and not screams of terror, we took the plunge and went for a little dip.  The water was very cold even with the outside temperature at 32 degrees (even crocs wouldn’t be daft enough to swim in this!) but the sight of the waterfall and the surrounding cliffs made up for the numbness and possible onset of pneumonia.

And so that was how we spent the rest of our first day on the road, going from brown sign to brown sign and one amazing tourist sight to the next, until we reached the end of the sealed road and that nights campsite.

So with having adeptly ticked off most of the main sights in Litchfield in one day, we drove 250km to the east to Kakadu National Park, this in contrast being the largest national park in Australia and the crown jewel of the Northern Territory.  Kakadu is about the size of Belgium (not sure why its always Belgium that everywhere compares themselves to) and stretches from the coast in the north and to Katherine in the South.

We made our way to a small camp site in the north and the location of some aboriginal rock art at Ubirr.  Having been on the road all day we arrived in time to watch the spectacular sunset here and again just in time for a Park Ranger tour which explained the art, the conservation of the area and some of its history. The drawings were dotted around the area under rock overhangs and in caves, with some of them they think dating back over 10,000 years however they are not entirely sure as they can’t use carbon dating as this areas paint doesn’t have any organic matter in it.

Once the sun started to go down we climbed the rock escarpment on the edge of the flood plains and watched the spectacular sun set over the saltie infested lowlands.

Slap bang in the middle of Kakadu is a tiny town called Jabiru.  The town planners had fun with this place spacing the buildings so far apart that you would struggle to call the place a town.  At least this design gives plenty of room for the dust devils to roll on past.  Jabiru is famous for one of the largest and controversial Uranium mines in Australia.  Controversial in that once the Australian government discovered the deposit a ll previous restrictions went out of the window and they dug a massive open cast mine in the middle of a national park and sacred aboriginal land.  Well, it is Uranium!

After a few days of exploring this amazingly diverse landscape we realised that the sealed road tourist spots were only a handful of the amazing sights that Kakadu had to offer.  The problem was that like in most parts of Australia there are two types of road, sealed for 2 wheel drive and unsealed for serious 4x4 action.  All the really special sights were hundreds of kilometres down unsealed roads and therefore not within our reach.  We did look at doing a 4x4 tour to take us to Jim Jim Falls (apparently one of the best) but the cost was ludicrous, so we decided to save our pennies for future adventures.

As we started to travel out of the park and head down towards Katherine, we got the chance to see a bush fire up close and personal.  As we drove around the park you would often see smoke in the distance or evidence of recent burning.  Nearly all of these fires are started deliberately by the rangers or the aboriginal land owners to control the spread of un-managed fires started by lightening strikes in the Wet season.  This fire though was only a few metres from the road and so I jumped out, with no concern for my personal safety to get an action shot for our avid blog readers.  As I stood watching, the wind suddenly picked up and blew the fire further along the bush increasing in volume ten fold in a matter of seconds, and seemingly lighting the ground ahead of it before it had reached it.  Trees, grass and the dead plant matter on the ground all caught fire leaving behind the smouldering barbequed remains.  I didn’t hang around long after that as I suddenly realised that I was stood in a non burnt patch! 

Our final Kakadu “brown sign” stop was to visit Mardugal Billabong, a 1.5km walk from the car park alongside the South Alligator river (no alligators here though…..just crocodiles!)  We set out, chatting away as usual, along a bush path and not long into the walk we both suddenly jumped about six feet in to the air when a very large snake disturbed by our approach darted to the side and behind us.  The snake was grey in colour and the thickness of a cucumber and the speed it shot off was astounding.  Being well spooked by this little encounter we calmed our breathing and continued our walk.  The trail meandered closer and closer to the river where there were lots of tree covered, overcast patches of dark water.  An ideal place for salties to hide.   Already spooked by the snake and not another soul in sight (the carpark was empty when we had pulled in) we were both imagining that every little twitch of the water or log on the ground was not just that, but actually a crocodile waiting for its first bite of British meat.  It wasn’t long before we decided that the billabong sounded rubbish anyway and we made a very hasty retreat back to the campervan!    

We enjoyed Kakadu National Park but both felt that we had not really seen what it had to offer due to our 2 WD restriction.  We are already talking about a return sometime in the future and hiring the mother of all 4x4’s to really give this place a good seeing to. 

Next:  Katherine and the long drive out to the west coast.