Last Day in Litchfield

We woke up to our final day in the Northern Territory after a great night's sleep in our cute little hut. We still had things to see in Litchfield National Park before driving back to Darwin.

Buley Rockhole is an awesome place in the park. It's a series of waterfalls and naturally created rock pools. You have hundreds of personal little pools to choose from, and we had fun climbing around in many of them.

Playing in Buley Rockhole.

See the tiny termite mound?

After playing around for awhile, we walked the path to Florence Falls. It was a pleasant walk with informational signs and rainforest-type plants along the way.

Overlook of Florence Falls

We did our last waterfall swim in the Northern Territory here in Florence Falls. There were several other people there (you can drive to it as well), but it wasn't overly crowded. Can you spot Zack's head in this picture?

Zack of course wasn't content with just swimming and relaxing; he had to do a jump.

There were tons of fish underwater. These might be barramundi; I'm not sure. I do know I ate barramundi a few times on this trip-yum!

We enjoyed swimming under the waterfall for awhile before heading back toward Buley Rockhole and our station wagon. We had to go drop off our car in Darwin and catch our flight home.

Our final waterfall swim!

Flying out of Darwin.

Our trip to the Northern Territory was amazing, and we packed a lot into five days. The Yellow Water crocodile cruise and our hike to Edith Falls were probably my favorite parts of the trip, but I have lots of awesome memories. If you're interested in seeing the "real" Australia, and you love outdoor adventures, I would highly recommend a trip to this part of the country. But be prepared for lots of driving...these national parks are big, and they're not right next to each other! Anyway, that's the last of my posts about this trip, so now I can hopefully catch up with posts about lots of other things we've been doing lately.

Aboriginal Art in Nitmiluk

In Katherine Gorge, you can park your kayak and get out on the banks of the first gorge and see lots of Aboriginal rock art. I liked it because although you knew the general area in which to find it, nothing was labeled. You had to look at all of the rock faces, under ledges, etc. and see what you could find for yourself. Then you get to figure out what it is. It was kind of like a treasure hunt in which you'd find more and more the longer you looked, and I'm sure I missed tons of it. Anyway, this is just a picture post with some of my favorite rock art I found. Enjoy!

Platypus, I think?

I like the handprints.

Under a ledge.

Another hidden one under a ledge.

These were really high up on the rock face. I'm not sure how they did it.

This one was huge and took up a whole rock face. Awesome!

Aboriginal Art in Kakadu (and a Dingo)

Kakadu National Park is home to lots of aboriginal art sites. We visited one called Nourlangie, and it was pretty cool. The rock shelter here has been used for about 20,000 years! I've included some pictures of some of our favorite drawings.

I've included this in case you want to try making some rock art of your own!

This one shows traditional dancing.

This one is called Nabulwinjbulwinj. You say it like Nar-bull-win-bull-win. He's a dangerous spirit who eats females after striking them with a yam. Yikes!

















This is the Anbangbang Gallery, and it includes Namarrgon (the Lightning Man), Barrginj (his wife), Ginga (the great saltwater crocodile), family groups on their way to a ceremony, and Guluibirr (the saratoga fish).

Here's another one of the Lightning Man. Namarrgon is an important Creation Ancestor who is said to be responsible for the violent lightning storms that occur every wet season. The band joining his head and ankles represents the lightning he creates. He's pretty cool looking. This was definitely some of the best (biggest, most detailed, most interesting) rock art I've seen in Australia so far.

And on our drive to our campsite, we saw a dingo. Poor guy-so skinny!

Catch-up Post: Kings Canyon

Last November, after spending another night sleeping in the car at Curtin Springs Campground (where nobody was camping), Morgan and I drove to Watarrka National Park and did the Kings Canyon Rim Walk. It was a 6km trail with lots of climbing, and it was awesome! We were able to walk right along the edge of the cliff at points, and the overlooks were impressive. And the best part of all-it didn't rain! Of course, it was still chilly and cloudy, but for once, we weren't soaking wet.

My favorite part was probably the Garden of Eden. This is a waterhole in the middle of the canyon with huge ferns and a waterfall. The picture doesn't do it justice; it was beautiful! In the picture below, you can see the Garden of Eden far in the background. The one to the right is zoomed in. We were able to walk down to part of it at one point. If it had been a warm day, we would have loved to jump in and swim!

There were lots of strange rock formations along our hike, like these sandstone domes that look like beehives. Very cool. We finished off the afternoon with the short Kings Creek Walk that went into the gorge from the bottom (not nearly as impressive) and headed back to our car, planning to drive back to Ayers Rock that night. Things didn't go quite as planned...stay tuned...

Grampians are Great!

I will fully admit that we are total Colorado snobs. Australia is gorgeous, but in a completely different way than our old home. We used to spend our weekends mountain biking, snowboarding, hiking, whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, and camping among some of the most beautiful 14,000+ foot mountains in the world, and it was amazing. So we sometimes find ourselves snickering at the so-called "hikes" here in Australia. Mountain biking among the kangaroos is a unique experience, but the word "mountain" is a rather inaccurate term. And we won't even go near the overpriced bunny hills they call ski resorts out here. But you know what? We went to the Grampians last weekend, and we were truly impressed!

Zack had this past Monday off from work, because it was Labour Day. We took advantage of the long weekend and drove about three hours outside of Melbourne to camp in Grampians National Park. Emily came along with us (Adam had to work), and we met up with Todd and Alena as well.

On Saturday, all five of us did a beautiful hike called the Mount Stapylton Loop. It was 12.2 km, and it took us about five hours to complete. But we stopped a lot to take pictures, eat lunch, fool around, etc. The hike was awesome: great views, some rock scrambling, cool formations, perfect weather with bright blue (dare I say Colorado-ish?!) skies, and fun friends. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:

Boy shot-Todd and Zack ride the "camel" rock.

Girl shot-Emily, me, and Alena-sitting pretty near the top of Mt Stapylton.

We attempted several times to get a decent jumping picture with all of us in it.
This was the best one. We had fun trying!

We definitely want to go back to this area of Victoria. Zack and our friends were musing about how the Grampians is what they pictured Australia would be like when they came over here. For me, it just reminded me of Colorado, and that made me happy! I'll have a couple more Grampian posts coming up about camping, the waterfall, and our day spent rock climbing, but for now, I'll leave you with a picture dedicated to our Colorado roots...Zack doing the Tim Tebow pose!