My Moment of Zen

I'm looking up at the sky.  Through the trees overhead I see the sun peering down at me.  Lying on a submerged rock, I feel water rushing over my body.  I lean my head back and only my face is exposed to the sun.  Semi-submerged, I hear nothing except the turbulent water beating and pummeling my body like a good massage.  The cool spring water encompasses me, flows around me, and sort of carries me away mentally to some place calm, and quiet, and peaceful.

So I had a good day today.  :-)

Up again early to catch another bus and we're off to Litchfield National Park.  The good news is that the park is much closer than Katherine or Kakadu.  So only 2 hours in the bus to get there.  The terrain is similar but different than Katherine.  It's made up of sandstone plateau also, but it's got a richer woodland forest and even some monsoon rainforest along the bottom of the escarpment.  The big attractions here are the waterfalls.

First up it's Florence Falls.  Two gorgeous falls with water pouring down the side of the sandstone cliff into a picturesque pool.  A pool that you can swim in!  Which we did and it was awesome.  A small group was leaving just as we arrived so we had the pool to ourselves.  Ourselves being me, another older American, and three German boys.  The water felt amazing after the hot sweaty drive and it was so clear.  It was quite turbulent as you approached the falls, but I discovered that if you swam to the section of rock between the two falls you could actually get to the rock wall and then edge your way underneath the falls.  And underneath the falls there was a little cove where you could stay and not get pummeled by the water.  It was really very cool.  I would push off from the wall and swim under the deluge and pop up on the other side.  I really am part fish at times.

Next up it was Tolmer Falls.  Another set of pretty falls.  But you couldn't swim in the pool below them.  The pools are home to some protected animals so humans aren't allowed.  Still.  A very pretty set of falls.

As we were driving to the next set of falls, our bus driver kept talking about the "One Guy" Falls.  And I really wanted to ask him who this "one guy" is that sort of has a waterfall named after him.  Oops.  Wangi.  Not One Guy.  My bad.  But very pretty falls.  And while you could normally swim in the pool at the bottom during the dry season, you can't know.  With all of the rain, the pools have overflowed to the surrounding flood plains where there are salt water crocodiles.  So that would be bad.  But still some majestic falls.

After lunch, we went to our last stop.    Buley Rockhole.  It's another one of these plateau fresh water springs that cascades down the escarpment with a series of small pools that you can swim in.  #Winning!  It's so hot here and the water felt amazing.  There were some Aussies at this pool just hanging out (and drinking beer of course), but it was still a lot of fun.  And it was here that I found the submerged rock to lay on and just vegge out for a bit.  So nice.

It really was a great way to end my trip to Darwin!  I'm at the Darwin airport waiting to catch my red eye to Sydney.  It's time for Mardi Gras!  Not sure I'll be blogging about Mardi Gras.  We'll see.