Termite Mound

Litchfield National Park, 100km southwest of Darwin, covers a huge area of stone country, woodland and rainforest. Our Indigenous day tour with former rangers also took us past the unexpected - Aboriginal communities, adult gaols and youth detention centres, sites where family members had been attacked by crocodiles (and survived), roadside cemeteries and family-owned traditional land.

We learnt that the thick grasses that spring up on floodplains during the wet season are burnt from April to June when there’s still moisture in the ground. Cycads, woollybutts, grevilleas and sand ferns recover and shoot up new growth.

The early start, 10-hr day, 400km on the road and 8km walking has done me in.