Darwin (Part 2) and Litchfield National Park, NT.

 Arriving back to Darwin, we returned to Free Spirit just in time to say Good Bye to Harriet and Frankie and wish them farewell for the rest of their trip. They are headed back to the West now as we travel south. It was such a pleasure and a blessing to meet them and enjoy this journey with them. Somehow we forgot to take a farewell photo!! 

We celebrated Father's Day in Darwin with pancake breakfast then explored the Esplanade and the playground with the Giant slide!! We then headed to the Lagoon beach with John/Pop for father's day ice cream and a swim.

The next day we had a fun morning exploring and learning at the Darwin Museum. The kids enjoyed seeing all the taxidermi birds, snakes, lizards, and butterflies. It was great to see them recognise things that we have seen along our travels so far and see their excitement in knowing what they were. Zara was very excited to find some pearl shell buttons which she learned about in Broome, but hadn't yet seen any.

We saw Sweetheart the giant croc that accidentally died as they were trying to catch and relocate him. He never actually hurt anybody but destroyed many boats so they were trying to relocate him to before he killed someone. Elsie loved pressing the button and making Sweetheart roar!

Bridie was a typical 2 year old in the museum and was running around, climbing on displays, and constantly telling Kylie she needed to go to the toilet. (Kylie now knows the layout of that museum very well) Bridie was also looking for places to lay down all the time, we thought she was just bored, but it turns out she was getting sick...read on later for more on that.

Next we planned to go the splash park in town, but didn't realize it was closed until we got to the closed gate. Instead we found a fun little lake to swim in with a big playground right beside it. Darwin sure now how to keep their people and families happy. Water and play! The answer to so many hot grumpy days.

We got up early the next morning to drive to Litchfield National Park - it's not a long drive but the campgrounds are first in, best dressed. We were lucky enough to get a big camp site so John could camp with us and it was close to the toilets/showers and the walking track to the waterfalls. We camped at the Florence Falls upper campground and it had recently been burnt with a bush fire only about  week or so ago. We are so thankful we were not here then.

Florence falls has some beautiful creek walks that Kylie and Saul each go to walk solo for some time out. It was so peaceful. The falls themselves are down 140 stairs which was a good leg work out. But the it was worth it with 2 beautiful waterfalls right at the bottom to swim in. We met our travelling friends from OurWeeClanInAVan, who we have seen a few times now along the road. The girls all love playing together. Bridie lost her thong (Her Elsa thong!!) one day down one of the stairs, and we thought it was lost for good, until Saul found it the next day and climbed over the staircase and saved it. He made her day!!! 

We visited the Buley Rockholes in the evenings - it quickly gained the nickname of "Bluey" pools because of the similar spelling and the kids liked the name. We had heaps of fun cooling off here in the evenings before dinner after all the daytrippers had left to drive back to Darwin. The joys of camping in the National Park.

The next day we drove to Tolmer Falls lookout which was an easy flat walk to a lookout. Here we saw some more red tailed black cockatoos.

Then we kept driving along to Wangi Falls - which is easily the most easiest and best for access waterfalls we have been to. No stairs, no rocky tracks, a simple sealed road and walk straight from the carpark to the waterfall. Again 2 beautiful waterfalls to swim around. Here we saw lots of spiders, a big goanna, and our first topless backpacker. 

We headed back to camp for the heat of the day and avoided the daytripper crowds. We were enjoying a pleasant afternoon until the local black cockatoos moved into the gum trees in a our camp site to enjoy their lunch. They were eating all the gumnuts and then dropping them to the ground - all over the car, the caravan and very close to our heads. This went on ALL day. Surely they had to run out of gumnuts eventually but the tree was providing a very good yeild. We looked at the gumnuts on the ground and the birds were working very hard to break them open and enjoy the sweet insides.

As it started to cool down, we went for a drive to the Magnetic termite mounds. They are made by a different species of termites called Magnetic termites, instead of the regular Catherdral termites. The magnetic termites always build their mound aligned north-south so as to provide the best temperature control. We had another swim at Bluey Pools again before dinner as well. Here we took photo with a 50 year old cathedral termite mound., as you are no longer allowed to walk out to the magnetic mounds.

The next day, John returned to Darwin as he was helping Ian and Abby prepare for a special event the next day - stay tuned for that one too!! We drove out to the Lost City which is a collection of sandstone rock towers that have slowly been eroded over time. Very impressive.

We then went back to camp and walked to Florence Falls one last time. Here we noticed Bridie wasn't enjoying herself, so we didn't stay too long, and after walking back to camp she fell asleep while Kylie made lunch and then slept on and off for most of the afternoon. While she slept Zara and Elsie continued the crafting phase that they have been going through during the whole trip. Lauren had given the girls some charms before they left, so they made their bracelets and they also made some special gifts for Abby.

Bridie woke up for dinner but was vomiting and now we all went into serious infection control - I think it was more heat related but the fear was real. Gastro in the tropics and in the bush is not something we wanted to experience. 

Thankfully the next morning Bridie was feeling better and nobody else was unwell. So we packed up and headed back towards Darwin yet again.