We stumbled out of bed and after
breakfast it was class time for the swarm. Here we were im the middle of
Litchfield National Park and all six members of the swarm were diligently working
away at their homework.....well that’s what it would have been like if
everything was perfect!
With their curriculum based
education out of the way we headed off on a tour of the park to see what we
could find. Again it was pretty ‘early’
in the season so a couple of the tracks, like the lost city, were closed so we
headed for the Blyth Homestead to have a look around.
Far from being a homestead this
was an outstation where one of the early pioneers of the area had built a fancy
‘shack’ for some of his early teenage children so that they could work the tin
mine that was just across the creek. While I could fully understand his
reasoning I am not sure it would pass the modern parenting bylaws that exist
today! We rolled on to Sandy Creek Falls. The day was starting to warm up and
the 1.7km walk in wet our appetite perfectly for one of the most spectacular
falls we have seen to date. Despite its amazing natural splendour the most
amazing thing about it was that we had it all to ourself...just our swarm of 6
kids and their 6 parents...a delight to savor.
The kids were in the water
straight away while we got lunch together and dragged them back out for some
nourishment. It took about two seconds for them to wolf down their sangas and
they were back in the massive plunge ‘pool’ at the bottom of the falls that
could have easily been called a plunge ‘lagoon’ or plunge ‘harbour’! I had been
eyeing of a couple of good launch sites since we arrived so I headed over after
lunch, eagerly pursued by the swarm, to a good 5 – 6m ledge. After lengthy
depth checks I headed up and with sweaty palms and shaky legs I leapt forth and
splashed down to the sound of cackled delight. Around one second later there
was the swarm clambering up the path I had climbed with me in desperate pursuit
to ensure all the health and safety guidelines for cliff diving were adhered
to!
For the next hour, or more they had a ball jumping of the cliff into the calm waters below, yelling out any assortment of things as they jumped. When I did the original dive and when the swarm first climbed and jumped Sambo, ever the tortoise, was still finishing his lunch so when he swam over and climbed up he got cold feet.
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| Sambo on one of his attempts |
I ushered him up twice and stood on the edge with him but wether it was having viewed it from a far or something else his legs were shaking and I helped him take the manual method down twice. He dove for a while from a lower point and on his third climb, holding his dads hand, he decided to take the jump. The second he hit the water he was out of it scrambling back up the rocks jumping again as if he had never had a problem, which he proceeded to do another 15 or 20 times before last jumps were called.
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| Sambo making the big leap! |
We headed back to Izzy and back to
the next set of falls. On the way in I had spotted a few sights that we stopped
at. Yesterday we had looked at some ‘magnetic’ termite mounds from a raised
boardwalk that got us within 10 or 15 meters of them...and gee it was exciting.
On the way out we pulled of the track, walked 15 meters through some grass and
we had two 2m tall specimens right in front of us! Another few hundered meters
up the road and there was an unofficial turn out to a massive cathedral mound
that we tucked Izzy in beside so she didn’t feel left out.
A few creek crossings later and we
were back on the bitumen and at Wangi Falls. While the falls were pretty
spectacular having to share it with a few hundred other people, especially
after just having the sandy creek falls to ourselves, was a bit of a letdown.
The boys had a good time and one of the swarm thought they saw a small croc in
the plunge pool so they all searched desperately in vain for the culprit,
funnily enough with no luck!
We headed back to camp in the
afternoon with the kids running wild while we relaxed and got the nights food
organised. It wasn’t long before the fire was going and was surrounded by 11 happy but weary individuals and after a few quite ales we all pulled up stumps
and headed to bed after a wonderful day
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