Darwin, and Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory
On the road at 8. Into Litchfield National Park by 10.
Now, Lonely Planet's Northern Territory guidebook is quite smug about Litchfield--"It's worth a few days, and as the locals say, Kaka-don't, Litchfield-do". They're comparing Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage listed site that's full of wildlife and wetlands and Aboriginal rock art and tourists, to Litchfield National Park, a less crowded national park full of wildlife and waterfalls and great beauty. And even though Lonely Planet's smug about their clever little saying, they still rate Kakadu a 'don't miss': so much for editorial consistency.
So, with such a rave review of Litchfield, we had to go. And rather than give it a few days, we gave it a few hours, which was more than enough. It's another case of the 'if there's a waterfall, let's make a national park!' syndrome. We stopped at a Wangi waterfall, and it was far from idyllic--sure, it had a pretty 100 meter cascade into a large, deep pool, but it also had a good fifty people milling about, a dozen kids screaming at each other across the swimming area, a huge kiosk selling ice creams and sodas and fish and chips, and a campground. Not exactly my idea of natural beauty--and this was at 10:30am on a midweek morning. It must be a madhouse in the hot afternoons or on the weekend.
So after a few mandatory pictures, we headed south again, stopping at the Blyth homestead ruins. They weren't really ruins; the homestead was more an outstation that was used up until 1986, and all the roof sheets and beams were still very much in place. It was a bit atmospheric, but not much more than that. To get there, though, required driving through a good meter and a half of water in a creek crossing. It wasn't crowded, needless to say.
You used to be able drive four kilometers from Blyth to the Lost City, a cluster of eroded sandstone boulders, but not anymore--it's now about a 25km backtrack. Sigh. And again, while it's 4WD only, it's a bush traffic jam. In the 11km to the Lost City, we pulled over a good 15 times to let people pass us on the one-car-wide track. The Lost City, again, was OK, but only mildly photogenic and interesting. You've heard the story before: old sandstone gets eroded over several million years, leaving towers standing. Australia is littered with Lost Cities. There's at least three in New South Wales, two in the Northern Territiroy, and who knows how many elsewhere in the country.
With that done, the other things to do in Litchfield are (a) birdwatch and (b) look at more waterfalls. Yawn. I think we've seen a good fifty waterfalls in Australia, maybe more. We both looked at each other and said 'You know, this isn't really doing it for me. Let's see what's on in town.'
So we headed into town to the movies, catching Minroity Report for the second time at 3:50 and Beneath Clouds at 7:20. Minority Report was our second viewing; it was very well constructed and we enjoyed it almost as much as the first time. Beneath Clouds, was, well, kinda lame though with some promise. The story was weak--two teenagers, a white girl runaway, and an Aboriginal boy jail escapee, hitchhike to Sydney. The police don't like the Aboriginal teenager, and he doesn't like them. Yawn, that's not interesting, but I bet it makes the vegetarian crowd feel proud, especially since the director is also an Aborigine. While the story was flaccid, the photography was well done. Still, the Beneath Clouds had all the impact of looking at someone else's holiday snapshots over their shoulder at the photo pickup window.
We do like Darwin, though, and are a bit sad that we'll be leaving tomorrow. For dinner tonight, we had cheap eats on the Darwin Wharf, while the sun set and the ships went in and out and the cranes built the new port for the Alice Springs railway, across the bay. It was very pleasant. Tomorrow, we throw ourselves into the melee that's Kakadu National Park in prime tourist season. Yeeeikes!
Also...
Waterfalls We've Seen In Australia (a partial list) - Tasmania: Meander Falls - Cape York: Fruit Bat Falls, Elliot Falls, Indianhead Falls, Twin Falls, Dulhunty Falls - Queensland: Zillee Falls, Milla Milla Falls, E-something Falls, Millstream Falls, and about eighteen on the Waterfall Way walk out of O'Reilley's in the Green Mountains south of Brisbane - Northern Territory: Wangi Falls
Weird Wildlife Sighting
Nothing much. A blue kookaburra, and a very blue kookaburra like kingfisher.