Florence Falls Litchfield National Park NT

After a peaceful night with the sound of the little cascade lulling us to sleep, we set off towards Litchfield National Park.

Our first stop was at the township of Adelaide River, which is a small service centre noted for the Adelaide River War Cemetery which contains 432 servicemen and 63 civilians and is the only Australian war cemetery on Australian soil. There were a few information boards and a short documentary on the 1942 bombing of the top end of Australia. 

We used the dump point and then continued further up the Stuart Highway until we turned off and drove through Batchelor. Historically the town came to into existence with the discovery of uranium at Rum Jungle which drew miners to the town and saw the building of houses and facilities for 600 workers.  It’s airforce base also had a major role during World War II.Just out of town was the Rum Jungle lake but it didn’t look too inviting.

We eventually entered the Litchfield National park.

The park was the home of the Wagait people for tens of thousands of years. In 1864 an expedition led by the Government Resident, Boyle Travers Finniss, passed through the area. A member of that expedition was Frederick Henry Litchfield after whom the park is named. After decades of tin and copper mining, and a short period when it was used as pastoral land, the area was officially proclaimed a park in 1986.

Our first stop was at the Magnetic Termite Mounds.

There are thousands of unusual, grey and narrow, termite mounds which are typically up to two metres high. The mounds' thin edges point north-south while their wide sections face east-west. It is believed that they form in this way as a kind of built-in temperature control mechanism. By being narrow and facing north-south they allow only the smallest possible area to be exposed to the sun.

Our next stop was at Buley Rockhole which is a series of waterfalls and rock holes very popular for swimming. We found a spot for Buster and made our way to the water enjoying several of the swimming holes even tho there were lots of people.

We then made our way to our campsite #11 at Florence Falls ($30pn).

From here we could walk down 135 steps to the plunge pool at the base of the double waterfall. As we refreshed ourselves in the beautiful clear waters we watched the daredevils jump from several spots into the deep pool. 

Once we had made it back to the top we went to the lookout with panoramic views of the falls and the pool below.

Then it was back to Buster for a few refreshing drinks…cheers

102km today