Another Day in Heaven

Saturday 9^th July

We headed into town to top up on petrol this morning and had mobile reception so we called my nephew Daniel for his 11^th birthday only to find he was out fishing. So I hope he had a great day.

Back into Litchfield and our first stop this morning was Wangi Falls which were beautiful and probably the most photographed falls and water hole in Litchfield as it was the easiest to get to (made for a nice change really). Unfortunately the water hole was still closed for swimming as the wet had lasted longer than usual the water level was still too high.

Moving along the next stop was Blythe Homestead. We were actually lucky to be able to get down there – yesterday when we entered the park the road was closed but had opened by the time we were heading home. Turns out the road had been closed for a good reason about 300m in we came to a nice high creek crossing. Being the good friends we are we all made Matt go first so if he got stuck we would know not to follow. Thankfully he made it over fine so we followed – kids thought it was great.

Further along we got to do another creek crossing just before we arrived at Blyth Homestead. The house itself wasn’t much more than a tin shack but inside there was the most incredible written history of the family who used it. It was used as a satellite homestead for the family of 14 kids. Basically the father sent the kids out to run this section of the property when they were about 10 (I can see his point of view some days).

We headed further down the dirt road to Sandy Creek (where we had a quick lunch in the carpark) and Tjaynera (yeah they got dubbed the Tjiunana falls) which were beautiful. Yet another gruelling bushwalk in and a ridiculous number of rocks to climb over – apparently only 1.7km but once again well worth the effort. I arrived just as Matt had finished taking a picture of a water snake that had been swimming near the kids. Thought about not getting in the water for a nano-second but was too hot after the walk to let a little (ok, large) snake stop me. Stripped down to my swimmers and stepped onto a rock in the water and it was freezing! However, it looked far too beautiful not to swim out to the waterfall. I was a bit concerned at first about how black the water was but when I started swimming I realised the water was actually crystal clear, it was the depth making it so black.

Once back in the car again we headed back out the way we came in, and went to Tolmer Falls Lookout. Sam fell asleep on this stretch so I stayed in the car and sent Paul and the kids in to have a look – apparently it was ....... wait for it.....a......waterfall!!!

Back at camp that night we fed and showered the kids and packed them off to bed and settled down with a Baileys – life is good!