Tucked away off the Victoria Highway, Giwining, or the Flora River Nature Park, is a beautiful spot ideal for a quiet weekend away spent tossing a hopeful line into the river or watching out for the many different birds living in the forests.
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This tiny 78 square kilometre park protects 25km of the Flora River and with it amazing looking animals such as the pig-nosed turtle, fascinating rock formations called tufa dams and spectacular forests that fringe the river.
The traditional custodians of Giwining are the Wardaman people and the park helps protect their cultural landscape. Senior custodians perform ceremonies and songs and tell stories along song-lines that traverse the area and around the parks sacred sites.
Rainfall over the Christmas week of 2015 smashed many records across the Top End. A monsoon trough produced falls of between 230mm and 852mm in a few days over the lower Daly River catchment including the Flora River with more than half of this falling in about 24 hours over Christmas and Boxing Day.
That much water in 24 hours!
Giwining will feel the effects of this weather event for many years to come.
Floodwaters badly damaged infrastructure inside the park with walking tracks, toilet blocks, bore pumps and access tracks all needing repair or replacement while the small boat launch was washed away entirely.
The biggest change was in the forests that fringe the river. Usually home to many different critters, these thick shady swathes of greenery almost disappeared. Floodwaters uprooted huge fig trees and tall palms alike with raging waters scouring even the top soil away in many parts.
Giwining has been closed to visitors since the flood. Rangers have been working hard to repair or replace the toilet blocks and walking tracks so that visitors can enjoy this beautiful spot again in 2017. Weed management programs inside the park have also been in full swing with many problematic introduced plants popping up in the bare soil.
What we can’t immediately replace are the age old trees from along the river bank. These will definitely return to provide shade and shelter, one day, in their own time.
The Parks and Wildlife Commission hopes to have Giwining up and running for the dry season of 2017 so why not plan for a short mid-year break, watching the birds, staring up and the stars and waiting for the world to turn.
