Lost in Limmen

At Butterfly Falls we wade through the shallows, inching silently towards the cool stone wall where a thousand fluttering butterflies shift restlessly in the midday heat. One step too far and the butterflies take flight, rising in vast waves to circle through the paperbarks and resettle beside the falls.

Flanked by fragrant, honey-scented grevilleas and stalked by waterbirds, this lovely oasis provides the only crocodile-free swim in faraway Limmen National Park, a vast, million-hectare sanctuary in the Northern Territory’s far northeast. We laze here all day, diving deep to scatter tiny fish and floating beneath bright azure kingfishers hunting dragonflies on the wing. Only when the sun swings low and our bellies begin to rumble do we stroll back to camp to stoke a starry night campfire.

For city escapees, anglers and solitude-seekers, Limmen’s utterly bewitching, big patch of green is