Kakadu to Litchfield

Another day, another cruise. It's a tough life, let me tell you! Up before dawn to catch our sunrise cruise on Yellow Waters; same mob as the sunset cruise a couple of days earlier, but obviously with one major difference this time.

We cruised around Yellow Waters Billabong this time with Ranger Tom (our previous guide Ranger Reuben was in another boat), checking out the sunrise, the birds, the plants and of course the crocodiles. We saw one croc sitting up on the bank, and as we approached he stretched his jaw super wide! Crazy - apparently their bite pressure is some ridiculous amount like 10,000psi, and even just the weight of their upper jaw is enough to sever a limb. Scary animals.

Buffet breakfast back at Cooinda, then time to hit the road again! We drove south out of Kakadu, making towards Pine Creek. Here we turned right onto the Stuart Highway and back vaguely towards Darwin. Stop #1 was the Adelaide River War Cemetery, where most of the casualties from the WW2 bombings of Darwin and the Top End are buried (or at least commemorated). Darwin was bombed 62 times during the war and basically completely destroyed, a fact that's slowly being lost to the sands of time - if indeed people from the southern states are even aware of it. Most people know that the bombings occurred, but I think many people would be surprised at the extent of the damage.

Back into our rolling home on wheels and we headed north-east into Litchfield National Park. The country here was much sparser than the dense forests of Kakadu, though a lot more burnt as well. I didn't realise that the back-burning they do up here is just in small areas - they might burn an acre or two here and there, but only burn that area every few years. If you burn off the entire area, all the animals and trees die, but if you give them somewhere to flee the fire they'll always return.

Our main stop of the afternoon in Litchfield was Florence Falls, a triple fall that what it lacked in height, made up for in intensity! A huge torrent of water was gushing over the top and filling the large plunge pool, which we happily plunged into. And of course I noticed as soon as I jumped in that the GoPro battery was flat, and the spare battery was back in the car - 135 steps above us! So back up I went. But it was worth it.

After a good long relaxing swim we jumped in the car again heading for our final spot, Wangi Falls. This place was Shandos's favourite from previous trips - the plunge pool is enormous and the falls themselves are very high. But to our disappointment the pool was closed, because - you guessed it - a crocodile had been seen in the water the previous day. I can only hope it was spotted before anyone started swimming because holy shit I can't imagine the bedlam that would result if there was a hundred people in the water and someone yelled "CROCODILE!!!".

We'd planned to stay the night at the adjacent campground which turned out to be full, so we just parked in a parking bay towards the back and hoped no rangers came by - especially since we didn't have anything close to the correct change to pay for our spot (the cost was $13.60 and both of us only had $50 notes!). Thankfully no rangers came by, though at about 10pm we heard gunshots which according to a neighbour was the rangers shooting at the crocodile. No word on whether they'd succeeded, but I'll give you a spoiler for tomorrow - they didn't.Read more