Litchfield National Park, in the Northern Territory, Australia, is 106km from Darwin whereas Kakadu National Park is 305km by the Arnhem Highway. Tourists short on time often choose Litchfield over Kakadu for this reason. Compared to Kakadu, Litchfield is very compact, has mostly easy bitumen roads, several water falls where you can take a dip – once they have been checked and resident crocodiles removed after the wet season. If you are reasonably young, or older but fit, there are several walks that could easily add some lovely lazy days to your stay.
Wangi Falls – crocodile free swimming in cool clear water. Notices do indicate that care should be taken at all times though! These fearsome animals do make their way back.
In Australia “white anting” is used as a verb to describe a person who uses subterfuge and underhand tactics to bring down another person. Recently I heard one of our recent former leaders described in the social media as “the greatest White Ant – er of all time.” I offer no personal evaluation of that comment, but merely report it as an illustration of how white ants feature in our landscape, environmentally and politically!
Actually, the termite is known as a “white ant” because its skin is so thin that you can see through it. This thin skin also means that it is so very sensitive to the sun that, as the region receives a massive rainfall during the summer months each year, it needs to build its mound above ground level. Also, in order to capture optimum conditions it builds its mound with a North-South orientation thereby ensuring that one side is always in the shade.
My question as to why these termite mounds were called “magnetic” was explained at the Information Board. The mounds are made by the blind worker termites so the scientists tested a theory that they did not use the sun to align the mounds North-South but instead had an inbuilt magnetic compass. To test this theory the scientists, artificially changed the magnetic field. The termites then realigned their mounds North-South.
Driving around Litchfield National Park is easy with flat stretches alternated with low rolling hills. We were on one of the flat stretches when we came across the sign pointing to Florence Falls. I was somewhat puzzled as there seemed nowhere for water to actually fall and neither had there been any sign of water. Down the road we went . . . and heard . . .water! To get down to the pool there were a hundred steps. It looked like a lot of fun below!
While I enjoyed our day in Litchfield, especially the dip in the croc free water, Kakadu wins its top placing in my must return again list.