Thursday 2 August – Well we certainly chose the best sights to see today – mainly because they were all fairly easily accessed, so we had a comfortable day.  As it was another warm one, we got away a bit after nine o’clock this morning, turning right as we left the camp and heading in the direction of Batchelor.  But the furthest we went was 24 km to the Florence Falls.  Here we went to the viewing point where we had a lovely view of these pretty falls.  We chose not to do the almost 2 km walk to Buley Waterholes, as we would have had to walk the same to return to the car!  Instead we drove to the Buley Warerholes carpark about 3 km away, hitched up our backpacks and did the 1.3km walk into the waterholes.  When we reached our destination, we were really surprised to see these lovely waterholes at the foot of mini waterfalls – a row of about five or six holes.

We found one that appealed to us, piled our stuff on a rock, and had a dip.  Luckily one fellow there told us to be careful as the rocks on the riverbed were quite slippery, and so Grant gingerly entered the pool, testing it out for me.  It was really nice in, as you get pretty hot walking in to these places, so we had a lovely cool off, then sat on the rocks for about half an hour drying off and watching all the other tourists of all shapes and sizes having their dips.

Grant enjoying Buley Waterholes

We left there and next stop was at a most exciting destination – the Tabletop Swamp!  I felt a bit like Shrek, hanging out in a swamp.  Apparently it was a bit of a haven for different birdlife, though we didn’t see a lot of specimens.  I did make the mistake though of speaking to an old codger with an impressive looking camera – lens about 30cm long, who was gazing fixedly at the top of a tree: ‘Wow! That’s a serious camera.  Are you photographing birds?’  His reply was a look, followed by finger in the air indicating I be silent, then pointing to the tree.  I got the message.

Tolmer Falls were the next photo opportunity.  Regarded as possibly the most spectacular of the falls, these tumble a great distance to a clear plunge pool at the base.  Visitors are not permitted to go to the bottom of these falls as the caves at the bottom are the home to several colonies of the rare Ghost bats and Orange Horseshoe bats, and they need to be protected.

Our final spot to visit was only about four kilometres from where we are staying – the Wangi Falls.  These were easily accessible too, with only a 300 mtr walk each way to get to them.  This was an extremely popular place, with huge picnic grounds, a walking track to a lovely viewing spot, and a large pool at the bottom of the falls had attracted lots of swimmers.  So again we joined them and spent probably half an hour or so in the water, which seemed cold as you got in, but was lovely once you were under – well shoulder deep anyway!

While we were here a couple of groups of aboriginal kids were brought there to swim by what I assume to be teachers.  The kids were probably aged between 9 and 12, all wore life vests and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.  They possibly came from a Christian school we noticed yesterday when we were exploring.  After the swim we hung around there for a while then came back to camp, had some lunch – by this time it was bout 2.30, I gave my sneakers a much needed scrub, cut Grant’s hair and we sat around for the rest of the afternoon enjoying the glorious day.

Dawn getting wet at Wangi Falls.

So as you can see, we didn’t over-exert ourselves at all today, and tomorrow we head to Darwin, where we will reach the most northern extremity of our trip. We are having a great time, and look forward to what is yet to come.