Litchfield National Park, near Darwin, Australia

We spent a whole day at Litchfield National Park, a short drive south from Mandora.

 

On the way to the park we saw a "highway train," a truck with three trailers.  Only in Australia!  (I think).

 

Cathedral Termite Mound.

 

An illustrated Cathedral Termite Mound, just like the one we saw!

 

Bamboo Creek Tin Mine.  This mine operated in the 1940s, though tin was discovered in this area as early as 1906.  It was abandoned in the mid 1950s. 

Wangi Falls.  All year the Wangi plunge is home to fish-eating freshwater crocodiles.  However, during the wet season, saltwater crocodiles move in.  Therefore, people can only swim here during the dry season; by the time we arrived the water pool was closed.  The rangers check the pool for crocs before they open it at the beginning of dry season.

 

Close-up of Wangi Falls.

 

Around the falls hike there are trees overrun by fruit bats.

 

Cute little spider - the female is in the middle, and the little spiders around her are hopeful males.

 

During the wet season the native ginger shoots pepper the hillside with beautiful pink flowers.

 

Ginger close-up.

 

Top of the waterfall.

 

Awesome car we saw in the parking lot.

 

Tolmer Falls.

 

Florence Falls.

 

Cathedral Termite Mound.  These mounds are often over 5 meters high, while each termite is about 5mm long.  The termites have a very thin skin so they are very susceptible to drying out.  However, in this part of Australia, the days are very hot and the nights very cold.  In addition, everything gets sodden during the wet season.  The above ground mounds allow the termites to escape the floods, and the thick walls protect them from the heat and the cold.  The mound is oriented to use the sun to balance the internal temperature, in a north-south orientation.  One wall is always in the shade, which means there's always a place in the mound that is cooler.  How do they know to do this?  Especially since the worker ants are completely blind! Scientists theorize they use the magnetic field of the earth to orient the mound - when scientists artificially changed the direction of the magnetic field using magnets, the termites built repairs to their mound in the alignment of the magnets and not the Earth's magnetic field.

 

A few more magnetic ant mounds.

 

Havlik Park.  On the drive back we passed through the town of Batchelor, which has this cute model castle in the middle of town.