Walker Creek walk
Last weekend, I managed to escape Darwin and go to Litchfield National Park. I hadn't been there for a couple of years (ack!), and I have been going crazy sitting in front of my computer. So I took the weekend off and went for a walk. Litchfield is about an hour south of Darwin, by the paved road, and a little less by the dirt one. It has only one main road through it, unless you have 4-wheel drive, and there is a series of spots to stop and admire various waterfalls. On the far end of the park, about an hour from the entrance by the paved road (about 5 min from the dirt road side), is a nice walking trail at Walker Creek. The trail has several camp sites along a couple of km of nice trail, and right next to the creek. Very pleasant (except for the mozzies, but you can't really escape them if you want to be near water). I went for a walk along the creek and took some photos. Unfortunately, by the time I finally got to the trail head, it was one in the afternoon. The sun was about a week past being directly overhead, but it's close enough to be a bit unpleasant at that time of day - you don't really cast much of a shadow at that time. But there was a nice stream for cooling off. And I was the only person on the trail. I walked for a couple of hours, took a bunch of rather unexciting photos along with a few good ones, sweated a lot, and generally had a great time.
We're in the middle of the build-up season here now, which means it's really hot, really humid, and there are some really amazing storms that don't really produce very much rain, except for a 1 square-km area directly under that particular cloud, which can be dumped on. There had been a bit of rain at Walker Creek, so things were really starting to green up. I should mention that the build-up storms follow about 6 months without rain, so things are pretty dry and dormant until a storm rolls by. There had been a bit of rain at Walker Creek in the previous couple of week, so things were starting to get active again. There was a lot of germination, and regeneration. As with most of this area, there had been some fires there, and the trees and other woody plants were regenerating. And the grasses were germinating. I didn't see many critters, though there were some friendly red-tailed black cockatoos hanging around chattering, and some white-throated honeyeaters taking a bath in the stream.
On the way back, I took the much shorter, dirt road back to Darwin by way of Berry Springs. That was a nice road. I found a patch of magnetic termite mounds (see below) and stopped to explore for a while. The termites here are really amazing, especially the magnetic ones. They have tombstone-like mounds that are 3-4 meters tall, 1.5-2 meters wide, and about a half meter thick or less. They all align in the same direction, so they really look like a graveyard. Amazing stuff.
Closer to town, I found a farm selling mangos for $5 per bag, and the bags were huge - 15-20 mangos each. So I bought 3 bags and am not eating mangos at every meal, and some for snacks in between. I'm surprised my kitchen counter hasn't cracked under the weight of mangos. I'm on the verge of getting sick of mangos, and I still have about 40 mangos left. Fortunately, they freeze well, so I'll be doing some chopping and freezing this week. That has the added bonus of relieving the pressure to eat them all now while they ripen, and I'll be able to have lovely mango smoothies in a couple of months, when the fresh ones have gone away.
On a nerdy note, the manuscript that has been beating me up the last few weeks has finally been sent to the third author for final review before we submit it. This one was a real slog, but it's almost done. So, I'm happy for today. Tomorrow I go to the dentist, and I think I'll need a filling, so I think the happiness will be shortlived.
We're in the middle of the build-up season here now, which means it's really hot, really humid, and there are some really amazing storms that don't really produce very much rain, except for a 1 square-km area directly under that particular cloud, which can be dumped on. There had been a bit of rain at Walker Creek, so things were really starting to green up. I should mention that the build-up storms follow about 6 months without rain, so things are pretty dry and dormant until a storm rolls by. There had been a bit of rain at Walker Creek in the previous couple of week, so things were starting to get active again. There was a lot of germination, and regeneration. As with most of this area, there had been some fires there, and the trees and other woody plants were regenerating. And the grasses were germinating. I didn't see many critters, though there were some friendly red-tailed black cockatoos hanging around chattering, and some white-throated honeyeaters taking a bath in the stream.
On the way back, I took the much shorter, dirt road back to Darwin by way of Berry Springs. That was a nice road. I found a patch of magnetic termite mounds (see below) and stopped to explore for a while. The termites here are really amazing, especially the magnetic ones. They have tombstone-like mounds that are 3-4 meters tall, 1.5-2 meters wide, and about a half meter thick or less. They all align in the same direction, so they really look like a graveyard. Amazing stuff.
Closer to town, I found a farm selling mangos for $5 per bag, and the bags were huge - 15-20 mangos each. So I bought 3 bags and am not eating mangos at every meal, and some for snacks in between. I'm surprised my kitchen counter hasn't cracked under the weight of mangos. I'm on the verge of getting sick of mangos, and I still have about 40 mangos left. Fortunately, they freeze well, so I'll be doing some chopping and freezing this week. That has the added bonus of relieving the pressure to eat them all now while they ripen, and I'll be able to have lovely mango smoothies in a couple of months, when the fresh ones have gone away.
On a nerdy note, the manuscript that has been beating me up the last few weeks has finally been sent to the third author for final review before we submit it. This one was a real slog, but it's almost done. So, I'm happy for today. Tomorrow I go to the dentist, and I think I'll need a filling, so I think the happiness will be shortlived.
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