After enjoying our extended stay in Darwin, it was now time to start heading to the WA Border. On the way we wanted to camp at Litchfield for a few nights, particularly having got a small taste for it on our day trip to the southern areas. We were told that the campground at Wangi Falls was really good, but we needed to get there early to get a good spot. Well, we slightly misjudged the time it would take from Darwin to get there, but nevertheless squeezed into a great site just in time. When in Darwin we met a young family (the Lowthers) from Melbourne who also had a Jayco Expanda caravan & had daughters of a similar age to both Lucia & Chelsea. They too were heading to Litchfield so we arranged to meet up at Wangi Falls. After setting up the van, we headed straight to Buley Rockhole, a series of small waterholes along a creek as it wanders down into Florence Falls. Buley was packed when we got there & we managed to sneak the last carpark available. The rockholes were very appealing & the water seemed much warmer than that that we had experienced in other areas in Litchfield. Rather than lose our car park & drive down to Florence Falls, we decided to take the3km walk down from Buley to Florence Falls. It was a fairly leisurely walk, but it wound its way through some lovely forest & was a pleasant escape from the afternoon heat. We couldn’t have timed our arrival at Florence Falls any worse however, as a tour group of US High School students (2 bus loads of them) arrived at the same time as us. Whilst this didn’t impact on the beauty of the Falls, it did make the experience a little less enjoyable as space and tranquility was slightly compromised. Still we weren’t complaining – we had been so lucky on many of our attractions on our trip so far. After walking back to the car park at Buley along the same trail, we headed back to Wangi Falls just in time for a late afternoon swim in the massive lagoon pool at the bottom of the Falls. We had a great swim here & whilst the falls were not flowing all that well, it was still fantastic, albeit in water a little cooler than that experienced earlier in the day.

After having a great dinner & evening with the Lowthers, the next day we headed out from Litchfield to Edith Falls (about 35km North of Katherine). We had originally intended to visit Edith Falls on our way to Kakadu, but as does commonly occur, we were a little behind time so parked this experience for our trip back from Darwin. The campground at Edith Falls had great reviews from those that we had spoken to on our journey & also from our travelling bible ‘WikiCamps’ so we headed straight there from Litchfield & once again were lucky enough to get the last available camp site. The campground here is run by a few ladies who are renowned for their humour & service – we experienced both – and were convinced to camp for two nights. Edith Falls consists of two good areas to swim, one a 1.5km walk to the top of the Waterfall & the other a massive lagoon at the bottom of the falls – pretty typical of most of the falls actually!! We packed a picnic lunch & headed to the top of the falls first. This area consisted of 3 rather large waterholes, all quite deep & all freezing cold. I can safely say that even staying in the water a while didn’t allow your body to adjust to the temperature of the water. Perhaps we were becoming a little too soft or precious amongst all these beautiful falls & gorges!! The swim at the lagoon at the bottom of the falls was slightly warmer & the swim from the entrance point to the bottom of the falls was a good test of Raelene’s swimming stamina. It must have been around 200m against the current. She would not be deterred or defeated and completed the journey with a little left in the tank – despite the warning of freshwater crocs in the area!!

We packed up early the next day on our journey to the WA border, with the intention of a brief stopover in Katherine to replenish a few supplies. We stayed in Katherine for only a very short time & headed off for a free camp around 100kms from the border. After driving past a few that were full (even at 1pm !!) we finally settled on a small site at Bailes Creek. Despite upsetting the peace of a few grumpy Grey Nomads here, we took the opportunity to make sure that any fresh fruit & vegetables were either cooked, eaten or disposed of so that we wouldn’t get caught at the Quarantine station on the border. The Quarantine Check point here is notorious for catching travelers out & with the fines pretty prohibitive, we didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Raelene was at here resourceful best turning cucumbers into pickled gherkins, vegetables into soups & we actually threw out very little. Having spoken to a few of the other campers here, we realized that the majority were heading to the same campground as us next – Lake Argyle, so we decided to challenge ourselves to be the first to leave the camp in the morning. Setting the alarm for 0530, we made it quite convincingly much to the delight of the girls, being out Bailes Creek by 0645.

Funnily enough we forgot to consider the time change once we hit the WA/NT border & arrived at the Quarantine checkpoint right on 0600 WA time!!!! Thankfully, much to Raelene’s superior planning we passed with flying colours & were their first visitor for the day!