Matt Down Under

Route: Buley Rockhole — Darwin (~140 km)

We ran out of water in the morning, or at least the pump pretended it was empty which might have been because the car wasn’t standing on even ground. Since there was no water tank at Buley Rockhole and we only needed it for dishwashing and cleaning the car, we filled the tank with water from the creek.

After breakfast we went to Florence Falls and walked down to the plunge pool to go swimming. It’s a very popular spot and heaps of people were already there. It’s pretty cool to swim behind the waterfall.

On our way out of Litchfield National Park we made a final stop at the Magnetic Termite Hills, an interesting area where termites apparently learned to build their hills correctly positioned to magnetic North so that it gets the optimal exposure of sunshine. Pretty interesting to read the signs but were no long walks, so it was only a quick stop.

The way back to Darwin was pretty unspectacular, except for the fact that we almost ran out of petrol because I had booked the car so we could return it with an empty tank and of course I tried to come as close as possible to empty. Another quick shock was when we stopped at the side of the road to look up the location of Britz in Darwin, and then one of the tyres suddenly made the ‘flap-flap’ noise you hear when you have a flat tyre. Turns out it was only gravel sticking to the tyre, a flat one just a few km from Britz’s branch would been a frustrating end to a great trip.

At Britz we cleaned our car and packed up our luggage, then we took a taxi to the city where we had booked into the YHA. Unfortunately, contrary to my praise for YHA Adelaide a few weeks ago, the Darwin one was an absolute disappointment. First, I had to be given a different room because for whatever reason, all beds in mine were occupied. Then the whole hostel is a smoker area (protection of non-smokers in the NT seems to lag behind other states) except inside the building. The kitchen was so tiny that I gave up cooking very quickly and went out for dinner. Cleanliness especially in shared facilities was disgraceful at times. And then the gates and doors were open around the clock, so anyone from the street can just walk around the hostel area. It also has a very noisy bar. The only good thing was they kindly reduced my booking from 5 nights to 1 and refunded the money so I was able to leave the next morning and move to the much better hostel across the street.