Friday, June 25, 2010

Day 1 - Darwin to Litchfield

We arrived in Darwin a few days early just to unwind and take the chance to see what the place had to offer. The weather was perfect 30' average and coming from a cold winter in Sydney it was awesome being able to cruise around in shorts and thongs. We were staying in the middle of the CBD which is the main pub district, a main street with about half a dozen really cool 'aussie outback' vibe pubs.



Unwinding at the local pubs (pic taken with mobile phone)


On our last day in Darwin we picked up the Land Cruiser with Maui camper fitout from the Maui dealership and set off on our 4x4 journey to the west coast of Australia to Broome.



Picking up the hire 4wd (pic taken with mobile phone)


Before leaving Darwin we loaded up on supllies (beer, meat, wine, nibbles, water) and headed off south west to Litchfield National Park. One of the first sights that stood out on the road was the 130 kph speed limit. Coming from NSW where the most we've ever seen is 110 this was for some strange reason very interesting to us.



130 km/h. They do things different in the NT.


Our first chance to stretch the legs was at the Magnetic Termite Mounds on the outskirts of Litchfield NP. They were pretty different and reminded us of a graveyard. At this stage it and was a novelty as we had not seen anything like it before, however little did we know that we would see many more down the track with literally millions of termite mounds on the sides of the road.


Magnetic Termite Mounds


We arrived in the center of Litchfield NP just before sunset and decided to camp at the Wangi Falls campground. We had no idea what to expect from a 'campsite' in this part of the world but were pleasantly surprised. Full shower facilities with gas bbqs and washing up sinks etc. We setup the car for the first time (popped the top, arranged the luggage etc) and set off to have a look at the falls which were only 100 meters or so from the campsite.



Wangi Falls in the early evening.