Moonlighting in Katherine and Splashing Around Litchfield 28 Aug - 1 Sept

Katherine Gorge by Moonlight

We only had two days in Katherine.  For one of those we took my mum and stepdad down to Mataranka to see Bitter Springs – which I have already covered.  The other day we did something very special.  We did the Nabilil Sunset Dreaming Cruise.

My Mum was due to fly out in a few days so we didn’t have much time in Katherine so we concentrated on the main attraction - Nitmuluk National Park and Katherine Gorge.  In the dry Katherine Gorge is actually a series of 13 gorges which you can walk along, but the best way to see it is on the water.  People canoe up the first couple of gorges or you can take a cruise boat.  The cruise is a bit different as each gorge is separated by rocks in some way.  This means that you hop on one boat which takes you to the border of the first gorge where you then walk across to the next gorge and the next boat.  You can only see the first few gorges – if you want to see all 13 you need to do this from the air or wait until the wet season arrives and take a powerboat all the way up.

Because of my stepdad’s mobility issues we opted for the Nabilil Sunset Dreaming Cruise which was one of the best dinner experiences David and I have had in our lives.  You start with an ordinary cruise boat for gorge 1, transfer to another ordinary cruise boat for gorge 2, but when you come back to gorge 1 the dinner boat awaits.  And then you get to sit and cruise the gorge watching the sunset, listening to Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu in the background, whilst you feast on delicious food, sipping a glass of wine (or special lemonade with a flower in it for the kids says Mr L) in the meantime.  To cap our night off, it was the night of a full moon, so while the sun set the moon rose and what a beautiful moon it was. 

Everything about this cruise was amazing – the setting, the food, the boat, the sensational staff and even our kids.  They tried all the foods, behaved like kids several years older and also had the time of their lives (it helped that there were 2 other kids on board they could sit up the front and talk with them).  This was not the cheapest of the cruise options for Katherine gorge but it really was something totally special and everyone of us would totally recommend it!

Litchfield National Park

Litchfield is a small national park between Katherine and Darwin and we spent our final night with mum and stepdad who left us the following day, we stayed on for a further night.  For us Litchfield was like a natural water theme park.  The waterholes and waterfalls here are great and we spent most of our two days swimming in different places, leaping in and out of the water throughout the park.

Best Termite Mounds Yet

As you enter Litchfield one of the first sights you come across are an amazing group of magnetic termite mounds. We have seen lots of termite mounds in our travels; small, tall, fat, thin, red, yellow, brown, grey and some have even been dressed up (particularly on the Stuart highway to Darwin).  But these are the only magnetic ones – which means they all line up in the same direction and as they are all quite thin and tall this is very striking.  Across the carpark you have a different sort of termite mound – these are more usual in shape (vaguely round) but they are huge, very impressive indeed. 

Waterholes and waterfalls

The best thing about Litchfield is the water – in some respects it feels like a big natural waterpark.  You can swim, you can float, you can jump and you can cool down.  There are rock pools, large waterholes and fantastic waterfalls. Litchfield is pure water fun!  We swam in Buley’s Rockholes, we swam at Florence Falls and we swam several times at Wangi Falls.  We packed in a lot of water time in a couple of days.

 

Getting lost in Litchfield.

You can also get lost in Litchfield.  Along a rather fun 4WD drive track you can find a lost city, well it really does look like a ruined ancient city, but it is in fact sandstone remnants.  Originally the whole area was a sandstone cap but over time much of the cap has broken down and weathered away, what is left are block like shapes and eventually these became the towers that you see today.  For the boys they were like a giant playground of cubby houses and climbing towers.