Tuesday - Litchfield (Surprise Creek & Tjaynera)

We saw some really enormous termite mounds, but didn't manage to get a photo of the best magnetic ones. This cathedral termite mound was pretty impressive though.




I think this was the best part of the entire trip for Frank. We drove about 45 kms along a serious 4WD track with several creek crossings and one river crossing where the water was so deep we thought we might have made a big mistake - getting out to push a stalled vehicle in those crocodile infested waters was not an option. We couldn't even see where the track went and where it came back out of the water but trusting to intuition we found the track out - scary but fun. The photo is one of the much tamer earlier river crossings that we did.


We stopped at Surprise Creek Falls and had a walk to break the trip but we went to Tjaynera (Sandy Creek) Falls campground for the night. It was probably the most remote of the campgrounds we used and there were only around 8 sites, only one vacant overnight. The solar pump for the flushing toilet (luxury) wasn't working so the men's toilet became unisex, and as water was restricted a cold shower wasn't an option. We had another small campfire to try and keep the biting insects at bay, using wood we had collected along the roadside as we left Daly River, being careful not to pick up anything hollow that might have termites in it still as we didn't want them joining us in the car.

The photo below is of a basking freshwater croc from Katherine Gorge which for some reason I can't load on that day's posting.