Just a walk around the block!
Trip Start
May 16, 2011
1
32
125
Trip End
May 14, 2012
Where I stayed
Leliyn Falls (Edith Falls)
What I did
Swimming, bush walking
Nitmiluk National Park, Northern Territory, Australia
Monday, August 1, 2011
Up really early this morning as I heard someone going from car to car trying all the doors, got out my trusty torch and shone it around the place whilst making lots of noise (scare the intruders to death by being discovered). Found no-one around of course (made too much noise getting out of bed), it was not long before others were up as well. I'm sure they must have heard some of the noises I did (maybe they heard me getting up?). We packed up and headed off this morning to Edith Falls, I stopped in at the Kiosk to get Peter a Pauls lite iced coffee (the normal one is far too sweet), when going back to the car I decided to do a side trip (big feet and all) and took a lovely fall in the drive way of the service station part of the Kiosk. Peter had moved the car and I had become concerned as I could not see it so was not watching where my feet were being placed (grazed Knee was the result). We called in a picked up some diesel in town on our way out $1.54 per litre (first time it was below $1.85 per litre since leaving Perth). We set off and made good time arriving around 9.45am, unfortunately we were unable to book into a spot until after 10am but the guy looking after the place did direct us to two possible camp sites and advised if they were empty we could set up and let him know later. We chose site 21 which had parking available for 3 cars and a lovely grassed area to set up the camper. It was also very close to the amenities and was well shaded. I remembered when paying the fees at the kiosk that I had forgotten to charge the batteries on the camera and the guy there suggested he could have them charging at the Kiosk whilst we were getting ready for our walk up to Edith Falls (this was really nice of him as he had the only power available). What a walk we had, we left at 11.15am heading to Sweetwater Falls which was 1.2klms along a path going uphill to the turnoff, then 4.3klms to the falls passing Longwater Pool. It was a lovely little fall with very clear and clean water amongst the trees, we had a lovely swim and I have some great photos of the area and some of the lovely little flowers I found on the way there. We then returned to the pathway going back the 4.3klms and then a further 220m along a path which required us to descend some very big boulders to the Upper Falls. This area was also really nice with lots of other people swimming in the pool there. They had a nice little bridge to get you to the other side and the pathway continued past a lookout where you could see all three falls to the Lower Plunge Pool (Peter was a little concerned at what a Plunge Pool was, we found that this was a very deep pool with steep sides that you literally had to plunge into to get in the water). This walk was not as steep as the once coming from Sweetwater Falls to the Upper Falls and included a walk through the lovely tall trees which gave a bit of shade along the way. We took a swim in all the pools of course on our walk and had an enjoyable time meeting people along the way. We completed around 11.5klms in all arriving back around 5pm. We read our kindles for a time before having a BBQ which included Steak, sweet potatoes and salad. I found that the ants love Maple Syrup when we went to get the utensils, they had crawled into the container so everything had to be taken out and cleaned before we could use them (I now store the maple syrup in the WACOE). We are not allowed generators at this camp and whilst we were out walking, the Solar panel did not get enough sun so the WACOE lost some of her coldness (we charged her the next morning before setting off with solar power). This is a lovely little camping spot with lots of BBQ’s made available for use, lots of grass and shade, table and chairs, a laundry, a kiosk selling all those sweet things like ice creams etc and a decent bathroom with toilets and solar heated showers.
