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Visited: late dry season
Recommendation: This incredible spot has so much to offer. Lush, thick rainforest around the water gives way to dry eucalypt around the campstie. There are several walks to explore and a range of birds and animals. It is somewhere I would recommend and I can't wait to return myself.
Florence Falls is a stunning waterfall located in Litchfield National Park. It's a popular destination for both locals and tourists due to its picturesque setting, refreshing swimming pool and abundant wildlife. The falls themselves cascade down into a deep plunge pool, surrounded by lush monsoon rainforest. You can enjoy panoramic views of the falls from a nearby viewing platform, which is just a short walk from the car park. There are 2 campsites, one close to the pool and one further away.
You can walk between the two different campsites at Florence Falls, either along the creek or by a road, which also involves quite a steep hill. From both campsites, you can walk down to the pools and the falls themselves. All of these walks and just around the campsites themselves can yield some quite remarkable and interesting wildlife. Initially, I didn't see a huge number of birds here but again, as I just sat and waited I started to hear the distinct calls of cuckoos and then the chatter of parrots and singing of the honeyeaters. But I found it quite difficult to take a lot of photographs as everything was staying in the relative cool of the foliage.
I was sitting in my van one afternoon and a Collared Sparrowhawk landed in a tree next to me. I initially thought it was a cuckooshrike because it was about the same size. It was only when I looked at it through my lens that I realised it was the sparrowhawk. I never actually realised how small they are.
Collared Sparrowhawk (Accipiter cirrocephalus)
Down at the pools is a large colony of fruit bats. These are Black Fruit Bats and as you might expect, they make a lot of noise in their daytime roost. They're not terribly interesting - once you've seen them hanging upside down in the day, then one fruit bat is very much like another. But they do make quite a nice portrait if you can get them out in the light.
Black Fruit Bat (Pteropus alecto)
A reminder of how careful you need to be at night was that I found not one but 2 Northern Death Adders around the campsites. They were just sitting on the trails and were easy to miss. Both seemed to be quite sedate, perhaps because it was early in the evening.
The Death Adder is one of the most venomous snakes in the world, and its bite can be fatal to humans. The venom contains potent neurotoxins that attack the nervous system, causing paralysis and respiratory failure. It acts quickly, and symptoms can appear within minutes of a bite. Before the development of antivenom, the mortality rate from Death Adder bites was around 50%.
A little shock to the system.
Common Death Adder (Acanthophis antarcticus)
Down at the pools there was a lot of commotion one morning when a monitor wandered through the area. Lots of people took photographs and videos with their phones and I was concerned about the animal. But it was quite unperturbed by the amount of people down there even walking over the top of bags and clothes and stuff. And if people got in its way, it would just gently turn and walk quite sedately in a different direction. Even spending time to bask on rocks for moments! It was only when I looked a bit more closely that I realised it was a Merton's Water Monitor. And it was a beautiful medium-sized monitor that I'd never seen them before.
Mertens' Water Monitor (Varanus mertensi)
I always get excited when I see something small scurrying about and I chased this little critter to get a photo. The only way to identify the small rodents in the bush is by using photographs. I used to identify rats by that long snout but there are marsupials and marsupial rats that have the same look about them. I put this photograph in because it illustrates how you can tell marsupial rats from common rats. And that is the tail. If the tail is scaly, then it's a true kind of rat, of the less attractive sorts. If they are on the move than the other giveaway is that marsupial rats have a hopping gait, while true rats tend to run or scamper.
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