Dundee Beach and Litchfield NP

We debated for a bit about going up to Dundee Beach. Someone who we met somewhere along the way recommended it to us, but we were a bit dubious about the benefit of going to a beach where we could swim due to certain death – crocs, sharks, stingers…

But we decided we’d go up there anyway, mainly because after a week off in Darwin I had a small mountain of work to catch up on, and the kids hadn’t done schooling in a long time either.

So we booked into a really nice little bush camp about a three minute drive from the beach and basically sat there for three days working, schooling and studying, then going for walks near (but not on) the beach in the late afternoons. After a few days of this I’d cleared most of the backlog and we were ready to get back into it again.

It wasn’t far to the next spot though, just down to another little bush camp called Zebra Stone, a few minutes from the entrance to Litchfield National Park. We planned five nights here because we needed to do the “national park shuffle” whereby we take turns going into the park while the other looks after the dog. This time though the kids were going to have to go into the park every time, as the person back at camp needed a bit of quiet time to cut through some work and study.

Unlike Kakadu, which is enormous, Litchfield is a manageable size. We visited each of the attractions (which are mostly waterfalls and waterholes) and did each of the short walks. The only issue I had was that it was crowded everywhere. I guess it is just a good shooting distance from Darwin for day trips.

I was pretty nervous about the swimming, because even though the signs say it is ok, Litchfield was the scene of a croc attack only a couple of weeks ago, at Wangi Falls (where the signs say it is ok). I knew they’d removed that croc, but in my head that just means it’s free for another one to move on in.

Anyway, I was very picky about where we swam. Basically in smaller creeks where I could see the bottom clearly, rather than the larger, deeper pools. Jim on the other hand, chucked the kids in everywhere, including Wangi Falls. Everyone survived, so either we were lucky, or I was overly cautious for no reason.

Litchfield is also known for its magnetic termite mounds – termite mounds arranged north to south to help protect them from the sun. We happened to be there when the ranger was about to do their talk so we hung around for that and it was actually fascinating. There are about 150 different types of termites (and only about five of those are the ones that actually eat your house). The ones in Litchfield eat plant matter, and a good thing they do otherwise the whole place would be a bushfire waiting to happen.

They’re quite social too, with social classes and a hierarchy, starting of course with the queen, who can live for up to 80 years old. You can build a pretty big termite mound in 80 years!

So for four days we alternated going into the national park with the kids doing everything twice. Back at camp I had a fair bit of work to do (where does it all come from!!), but with no distractions I got into it. The poor dog didn’t have much of a fun time, but he does enjoy his sleeping so perhaps he had a nice time after all.

He had a bit of a cough though, and we suspected kennel cough as almost every time we’ve ever put a dog into the kennels it ends up with kennel cough. So we drove back to Darwin (or near enough) to see the vet who gave us some expensive antibiotics to sort him out. While we were there I did the shopping as we hadn’t really been near a shop for about a week.

Both our stays at Dundee Beach and Zebra Stone were quite relaxing, especially after the busy-ness of Darwin, but it was time to move on and not only leave the area, but leave the Northern Territory, and make our way west. I can’t say I’ve been looking forward to some of the big drives ahead, but there’s lots to see and WA is massive so the only way to do it is to get in the car and get going.

We had to drive out via Katherine (and an unsuccessful trip to the post office – see my long ranty Facebook post for that saga), and then stayed a night in Timber Creek (so many bats!!), before finally reaching the WA border. We’d been eating our fruit and vegetables in anticipation of the border crossing, so by the time we got there I only had a couple of onions, a bit of garlic and the remains of a bottle of honey to hand over. The guy did ask if we had a fridge, but when he saw how much we’d have to unpack to get to it, he waved us through trusting (and rightly so) that we weren’t smuggling anything in.

So here we are, in WA (Kununurra to be precise), ready to start exploring the last state on the list – Western Australia.