Litchfield Tourist and Van Park Batchelor

It is getting warmer by the day traveling towards Darwin in the far north. On the way we decided to make a detour through Litchfield national park. We parked our bus at the showgrounds at Adelaide river where we could leave our beloved dogs behind whilst we do the touristy things.
The show ground was great ,a pool , lots of space and not many people around. The next day we decided to tackle the park from the south and this meant a 40km dirt track on ...

... is on but are removed for the dry season9but how are they sure they get them all out for the swimmers.

After the swim we headed back to camp and realised just how friggin hot is really was.
I opened a red wine an had one and a UDL and yep I was ***** it was so hot I got drunk a bit quick for my liking. I had another red anyway. No air con here to use no power for it. we struggled as the temperture was shocking, we used some ice packs to help releave ...

... and refreshing. Onto Buleys which were a series of cascading rockpools along a steam. The girls loved sliding from one to the other.




Sunday
On Sunday it was another early start heading to Manyallaluk, south of Katherine. On the way we stopped to view the magnetic termite mounds. These mounds are all aligned north south to make the most of the heat during the day

... for the sugar food they produce. In return the ants protect the aphids from predators.

Green ants are amazing insects. I'm very glad I studied them and I hope you’ve learned something too.
_______________________________ _______________________
I got this information from talking to the litchfield ranger and Junior Ranger Review No 2 2007 (here).

... quickly I reckon! We also saw a huge and rare white bellied sea eagle which flew down and stole a whole big chunk of meat!

Back on the bus and off to Litchfield, the first stop was the termite mounds. The road was lined with your typical gum tree bush but gradually the termite mounds started to appear and got bigger and bigger. There were loads of them! There are three types of termite – Cathedral, Magnetic and Tree Piping. The first mound we saw was obviously a cathedral ...

... point north and south?
Magnetic termite mounds point north and south because then there will always be a shadey side of the nest.

Approximately how many termites are there in a termite nest?
Termite nests have millions of termites in them.

... the falls, before coolong off again at the next watering hole, Buley Rockhole.
This is a chain of small pools, all joined by little rocky rapids. There were a lot of kids there and it was starting to get busy so we decided to move on.
Next up was Tolmer Falls, where we couldn't swim, just due to access reasons, but you could view the high, thin waterfall from a viewing platform. We also did a ...

g'day all,
Well another day dawned and i am looking at the daisy's from the right side of the flower bed, we were up and had Breakfast yes yes i know i said we would not but i was hungry OK sheesh, picky picky people, any way just as we finished breakfast the fire alarm went off so we did the right thing and headed to the front of the hotel and was in the reception when the staff seemed to be looking for some sort of guidance as what to do they were not panicking but ...

... Hot Springs. We took the back road and stopped at Robin Falls on the way. It was a nice walk into the falls but too dangerous to swim so we left and headed on to Douglas Hot Springs.

Douglas Hot Springs is a 66 degree natural hot spring. We went down to an area where the hot springs meet the cold water from the Daly river. We chose a spot where we could lie with our upper bodies in the hot water and our legs in the ...