Litchfield National Park

While we were not treated to a banquet of animals to see, Litchfield National Park was still a fun place to visit. Our second day trip out of Darwin took us on a tour of this place. We started with a visit to Florence Falls.



On the way back from the falls, we had a few minutes to sit and rest so we took off our socks and shoes to enjoy the cool water. My foot was visited by a school of small fish as I quietly dangled it about.

Our next stop was Tolman Lookout where we could see for miles across the rolling hills.

The next stop was Wangi Falls where most of the people on the tour took a dip in the pool at the base of the falls. However, it began to rain, at first slowly, then with some force. After this shot, I retreated to a covered picnic table along with E and we waited out the cloudburst.

Perhaps the most amazing thing we saw on the trip was the magnetic termite mounds. This were once thought to be aligned with the earth's magnetic fields since the long axis of the mound always points north-south. However, further study revealed that it is the sun and its heat that determines the axis of the structures. These look like large tombstones all arranged to face east. By exposing the large faces to the sun in the morning on one side and the afternoon sun on the other, the insect colony keeps the hive toasty warm inside, just as they like it. By the way, these are more gass eating termites.

Nearby we see more of these enormous cathedrals rising in the trees.

This one (no longer used) is so large that it is surrounded by a walkway for us puny humans to walk around it and be amazed. If the estimate of the growth rate is correct at 1 cm/year, this one has been here more than 500 years.