Darwin - Dakar rally

This pix just sums it up!

Although it does not do it justice - to say at times visibility was poor would be an understatement, but read on!

Today was our long awaited return to Litchfield National Park. When we first went we were in the tail end of the wet and as such most of the roads and swimming holes were closed due to erosion and salties respectively!

Today having checked the relevant webpages over the last couple of days everything was open so we were off!
The drive in via Batchelor was uneventful - although I have to say it still freaks me out that you can legally drive at just below 81mph on a single carriage road way; but as Tish will testify to my driving is starting to fit into the local scene so you have to rise to the challenge!
Our plan of action was to go to the Lost City, have a picnic lunch and a swim at Wangi Falls and go home via the back route. Whilst I do still miss the variability in lighting up times (here sun rise varies between 0630 and 0650 and sun set varies between 1830 and 1900) the predictability is great - in the dry you just know it wont rain although it has to be said that today was far cooler, almost jumper weather although in reality it probably did not get below 24 degrees it felt decidedly cool when we got out of the car.
Lost City is an amazing place about 10.4km south of the nearest tarmac road so only accessible to 4x4 in the dry season. It is a series of sandstone rock formations that have been eroded over millions of years into a variety of shapes that look like ruined building and statues:

The formations and textures on the rocks were fascinating, not to mention the fact that there were plenty of hiding opportunities for everyone..

All in all a great place to explore and one that we will be revisiting by popular demand

Tish certainly got the off road driving bug, I drove the track in and she drove us out...

From here it was off  to Wangi Falls for lunch and a swim...

The falls were spectacular, even more so in the wet although there is no swimming then as Salties move up stream and can be found swimming in the pools. Despite there being resident freshwater crocs no-one lost any toes! The water was far too cold for Daddy!

From there we headed home the back route which is shorter in distance but does involve approx 56km of dirt tracks!
There seems to be no speed limit at all in these areas and at times the visibility was non-existant. I understand the appeal of off roading (it was great) but the speed at which some of these cars were going meant that it must have been hard to enjoy it. That said we did see some great wildlife, some of which was less photogenic than others...

From the top White-necked Heron, White-faced Heron, Great Bowerbird and Antilopine Wollaroo - can you find it in the last shot?!
I was in the process of getting the digiscope set up for the herons when the next would be entrant for the World Rally Championship drove sedately past at about 70km and flushed them!
A lot of the areas we drove through were in the process of being burnt off - the Parks and Wildlife Authority carry out controlled flash burns to prevent the build up of dead material that could lead to serious forest fires.

Although it seems drastic nothing goes to waste as you can see from the last picture there were many Black Kite feeding in the recently burnt areas.

We returned home for a steak tea, shower and bed - all absolutely knackered.

We will be back though as there are another 60km+ of tracks down to another swimming site to be explored yet not too mention numerous other side tracks that are no longer blocked with gates!!