1^st July: Litchfield NP

Today is Territory Day here when everyone celebrates the beginning of statehood for the Northern Territory. (Beforehand, it was governed by Canberra as a territory of the Commonwealth.) It is very significant for the people here and they celebrate with fireworks. On July 1, fireworks can be legally sold and let off. No other day! Darwin has been festooned with banners announcing “Buy your fireworks here on July 1!”. Thankfully, no holiday! It is school holidays for 4 weeks and so there are people everywhere as it is!

We visited a number of other waterfalls in the park today. We arrived early and so nobody was swimming. Busloads trundled in later in the day! The Wangi Falls and plunge pool were particularly lovely and a great swimming hole. Very popular! 

 At some of them an effort had to be made as the “walk” included rock-hopping and boulder-clambering. I gave up at the 1 km mark at the Cascades as my leg was hurting; Gail stopped 100 metres on and only Glen made it to the top of the falls. This time he has photos to prove it and show us what we missed. We also saw an abandoned tin mine at Bamboo Creek. It must have been a hard life! This was an underground mine and when all the main workers died of silicosis (a lung cancer) it was abandoned. Glen enjoyed remembering is father's tin scratching days up at Mt Spurgeon on the Cape. His endeavours were with alluvial tin however and thus no danger of disease from the activity, just snakes etc in the jungle!

A few fireworks going off in the distance but none here. So the smoke from them,which we are told is thick and acrid in Darwin, is not an issue for me!

Off to WA tomorrow. Kununurra! Gail wants to buy diamonds. I'm not! Too expensive! But the quarantine restrictions on food are quite specific. So I am giving away potatoes and lettuce, freezing onions and steaming and freezing cauliflower, broccoli and capsicum. I will eat up the left over salad for lunch.