As I mentioned previously Tanja flew back home today night. Gareth and I went to see Lytchfield National Park so that we have seen at least something from around Darwin where we will have stayed for almost a week at the time we will be leaving.

Lytchfield is good but I would say nothing spectacular. If I consider the fact that many people say that Lytchfield is better than Kakadu National Park then I think that we actually would not have missed a lot even if we didn’t go anywhere. I guess this way we at least have an acceptable answer when somebody asks us “What did you see during your stay in Darwin?” Don’t make me to let you believe though that it is not worth at all going to at least one of these parks. We saw some pretty spectacular waterfalls and if you haven’t seen a big (meaning bigger than a person) termite moulds you will have a great chance there. Some of them are pretty massive (although still not as bulky the one we saw along the Plenty Highway that goes from Queensland through the Simpson desert).

We couldn’t swim in the waterhole at the biggest waterfall as the water was almost overflowing its banks, the waterfall was really strong (perhaps too strong for a person to go under) and apparently there was a crocodile danger. Because it was so hot we decided to see just one more waterfall and head back to the start of the park to have a dip in some rock pools. In fact these rock pools turned out to be a very nice place to spend an hour or more at and have a dip. I let the rushing water to massage my still sore back and it was great! … as long as one can hold on the rock bottom to not be swept further downstream.

My riding gear is packaged with my bike so I was riding in a T-shirt and shorts and on return I immediately fell my thighs burning as I forgot to apply sunscreen on them. Normally the shorts cover my thighs when standing. It is a different story on the bike where you sit and the wind helps to uncover the rest of the top of your thighs. Well, I had sunscreen on my arms and it didn’t help much anyway. It was UV30 but I guess spending 7 hours in the Australian sun can sometimes defeats even such a strong protection factor.

On the way back we caught a couple of showers that made me slow quite a bit as the big drops really hurt when they hit your exposed skin. 

It rained some more later that afternoon. At least it got a little cooler for the first half of the night.

(360km)