Day 44 - Litchfield N.P. to Victoria River Roadhouse

On the way out of Litchfield we looked at the Meridian termite mounds, also known as magnetic termite mounds. These only occur in flood plains, and only in a narrow band of Litchfield National Park. They look like gravestones in a church cemetery, all running roughly on a north-south axis.

 

A Ranger talk happened to be starting as we finished our lap of the boardwalk so we gate crashed. Originally scientists thought the incredible shape of these termite mounds was due to the termites need to regulate the temperature inside the colony. The latest theory is each side acts like a huge lung in the wet season, allowing either side to breathe as the morning or evening sun dries out the waterlogged mound. Unfortunately the boardwalk didn't allow us to see them end on, but the Ranger told me they are about 10 - 15 cm thick. You can't get up close to a meridian mound, but the cathedral mounds are accessible as they are very common.

Each mound has one queen and one fertilising male, producing 3000 eggs a day! The queen may live for 50 years. Most often when she dies the colony dies with her, sometimes a second queen is created, but she never lives as long. Therefore the oldest mounds are approximately 80 years old. Ants are their biggest predator.

We arrived at Victoria River Roadhouse around 5.30, so we decided not to push on to Timber Creek. We all needed a good night's sleep. The funny signs continue in the outback.

 

The next day we would be saying goodbye to the Northern Territory and cross into Western Australia, so we finished all our fruit and vegetables. I also used up most of our honey in a marinade with soy and sweet chilli sauce on chicken wings, delicious. This roadhouse is pretty basic, but I highly recommend it for its lack of mosquitoes, picturesque setting and dry grass to camp on, which makes packing up much quicker. The shower I had was great, albeit a few missing tiles.

 

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