Reynolds Crossing, Litchfield National Park

The road that we were on to Tjaynera Falls passed a side road which is a four wheel drive track to the Daly River which is popular for barramundi fishing.  We are uncertain how often the road is used but it certainly is a lot less distance than following the bitumen highway.  The road is clearly sign written “no caravans” and we were aware that there were at least two significant river crossings.  The first of these was Reynolds Crossing and as it was only six kilometres from the intersection we decided to go and have a look. 

The track took us alongside a huge number of termite mounds, both the familiar cathedral mounds and also the much thinner mounds we had seen earlier in the week signed “Magnetic Termite Mounds”.  We still have no idea why they are called that.  We stopped off to have a closer look, and tapping the thin mounds we were surprised at how hollow they sounded.

We soon came to the signpost “Reynolds Crossing”.  The river is not very wide, and on checking Peter thought it was only about .2 metre in depth (but the ranger has told us there are many crocodiles in the river) but the access down into the river was very dug out and soft dirt.  Peter thought that there would be no problem dropping his way through the holes into the water and crossing to the other side.  However, I was far from keen.  I couldn’t see the point when it wasn’t necessary and we are so reliant on the car to keep moving with our travel.  So after pressure from me, and disappointment especially from Connor, we didn’t attempt to cross the river.  Tim and Christine along with their children, Tara and Angus, have a new Prado without a snorkel so they had already decided they were not going to go across, but were keen to watch Peter do so.  Peter would have been more than happy to drive across but reluctantly agreed with my decision.

We turned around and returned to camp going back through the water crossing near the highway.  It is interesting to note that the majority of the small streams and rivers have the crocodile signs out.  This is because the crocodiles mainly live in the Reynolds and Finniss Rivers in the dry season but do go into the smaller streams and pools during the wet season and during mating.  The main pools which are designated as swimming areas have crocodile cages and are checked daily by the rangers to ensure that there are no crocodiles present.

We made our way back to Wangi Falls and back to the plunge pool to cool off.