Week 8: (Part 1) Douglas Hot Springs and Butterfly Gorge

We start week 8 in Douglas Hot Springs. Yesterday we drove from Litchfield NP, heading back to the Stuart Highway and then south to the turn off to Douglas Hot Springs. The road is sealed until the last turn off to Douglas Hot Springs. We had a dip in the hot spring when we arrived, there were many people in the water but it was not bad. There were at least 30 other camps set up in the campground and we stayed the night.

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We went for a quick dip in the morning in the hot spring and it was much more pleasant with only a hand full of people down there. The hot water seems to only bubble up in one area and mixes in to the cooler creek water. The water is shallow and the sand is very rough.

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From the campground we made our way out on the 4WD track down to Butterfly Gorge. The track isn’t too difficult with only a few minor washouts and small sections of bull dust. It is fairly corrugated in some sections and takes a bit of time to get out as it is 16km long. There was 2 small creek crossings at the time of our travels but they were not deep.

Once out at the carpark it was only a short walk to the river. From there it was a fairly difficult rock scramble up and over two sections and then we made it to the gorge. The start of the gorge is beautiful and had a sizeable swimming area with a sandy beach area. The water was warm so we went for a dip.

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We swam across to the entrance to the gorge which was quite narrow and scrambled up some rocks. Inside the gorge it was very spectacular. There was a large swimming hole around the corner which was very deep. The water was a greenish colour and a very comfortable temperature. We had a great time swimming around, jumping in and sitting on the rocks.

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If you have a 4WD, the time and are able to scramble over some rocks we’d highly recommend going up to Butterfly Gorge. It was a very lovely place and not very busy.

We left the Douglas Hot Springs Campground that afternoon and made our way back to the Stuart Highway and turned south heading for Katherine. We camped in a road stop 30km out of Katherine.