Katherine
3rd - 6th June
Driving into Katherine was very different to other large
towns we had visited her roads were wide with a kind of very large avenue air
about it. Here, off the main street we
sighted many caravans parked up in only what can be described as massive paking
lot. The nomads were here to stock up at Woolworths and the local BWS liquor
store, obviously we will be doing the same later today!
We travelled down Gorge Road to our camp ground called
Shady Lane Tourist Park and it was shady too… it was like a south sea resort
with palm trees and a beautiful swimming pool that our pitch was quite close
too. We soon caught up with friends from
the track, Pete and Caron, they had been here two nights and this evening they
were going on the Katherine Gorge dinner cruise..which sounds just lovely. Pete
and Caron gave us some great tips and suggested we visit Edith Falls which is a
62km drive north.  |
| Shady Lane pool area |
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| Our pitch, backing on to the pool |
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| Edith Falls |
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| Edith Falls |
We didn’t realise that Edith Falls
had a National Park campground which looked really nice and outback. After finding ourselves a nice grassy spot to
leave our towels we ventured towards the waterhole, but as we did we turned and
found ourselves face to face with a couple we had last seen at Alice, they were
on their way back to Katherine after having been around Kakadu and
Darwin….people do travel a lot faster than us it seems!!! Tony and Janet asked
about our camp we told them it was good and we had a pool, they would try to
ring for a pitch there, we did see them later.
The waterhole here was very big and we really didn’t want to swim to the
small water fall as we were told there were fresh water crocs!! But they only
come and feed at night, Oh yeh???
Some young people were swimming out in the middle of the
hole and it seemed OK. But, we are still here to tell our story. After a
refreshing swim a lady approached Richard and asked him about a snake that she
had just seen disappearing behind a rock….needless to say a crowd suddenly gathered,
as a crowd I mean 6 or 8 people. We all eagerly awaited a sighting of the said
snake and yes, there it was moving fast in the undergrowth. Everyone agreed
that it was a King Brown, only the second deadliest in Australia. Helen soon made a fast retreat to gather her
belongings ready to run back to the Ute.
Back at Shady Lane we spotted our friends, we arranged for a little
gathering (happy hour) back at our van after we had cooled down in the pool.
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| Look carefully for the black snake |
Tony and Janet remembered our other friends Bob and Jackie, we told them about
the bad luck Bob and Jackie were having with their Motorhome. Bob and Jackie
have had to spend $7000 on the engine but we are lucky as they will come and
have some time with us on the Daly river at Lee and Jenny’s Bushcamp and we are
so looking forward to that.
Saturday morning and we made a decision to go on the two
gorge cruise $84 each this afternoon. Richard managed to get us booked in OK
for the 2p.m. one. We had a lot to do today as we wanted to see the Museum and
stock up on food before we leave tomorrow!!
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| Dr Clyde Fenton's Tiger Moth |
The Museum was only a 5 minute drive away, so off we went. The DVD of the 1998 Katherine flood was so good, we didn’t realise how far the water travelled from the Gulf of Carpentaria, between 25th and 27th January 17.6 inches of rain was recorded falling over the Katherine River. On Australia day the roads north and south were closed due to the massive rising of flood water. 200 km downstream at Daly River community the flood waters had risen to massively and it peaked at 55ft (16.8m) on the 3rd February 1998. The whole community of 400 people had to be evacuated by helicopter, not all at once you understand.
An amazing story of a local GP (flying doctor) called
Doctor Clyde Fenton is told in the Museum and even his little plane a Tiger
Moth is here. He used to take his wife to the pub in the plane and park it
outside, the police didn’t know what to do and neither did the Aviation
authority a great story.
We managed to make our 2 p.m. appointment in the Gorge for
our cruise, but, we were held up because of coach loads of people from the
train The Ghan had turned up and they were given priority!! We forgot about the
Ghan being here on Saturdays.
Our tour/boatman was very knowledgeable and passionate
about the Nitmiluk National Park and Katherine River, he shared and pointed out
lots of information about the Jawoyn traditional owners of the land. It is all so interesting and if anyone does
feel they want to know more about it after reading our blog please have a look
at www.jawoyn.org/governance/history
Our young tour guide sounded more and more Kiwi and so
Helen not being able to resist asked the young man! It turned out his father is
Samoan and his mother Aboriginal and he did spend a lot of time in Auckland but
was born in Australia and was so adamant that he was Australian, we had a
wonderful afternoon in the Gorge and so pleased we did the cruise after all,
even if we didn’t get fed.
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| 1st Gorge |
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| There are a few sand banks too |
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| On route to the 2nd Gorge |
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| 2nd Gorge |
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| Freshwater Croc sighted on our return in the 1st Gorge |
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| Nice little chap |
After our wonderful trip in Katherine Gorge we drove to the nearest supermarket, Woolworths and spent lots of money stocking up for our next 10 day bush camp! We intend to head off early tomorrow for Lee and Jenny’s Bushcamp on the Daly River.
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