16th – 19th June

We are sitting in a roadside camp on the Kakadu Highway after spending three great days in Katherine.  The weather has been great although still a little cooler in the mornings than we expected.  Katherine’s latitude is equivalent to a point midway between Cooktown & Weipa so having temperatures of 6 & 7 degrees in the mornings is quite unexpected.  The locals are telling us this too.  Having said this the days are actually beautiful with mostly blue skies and temps in high 20’s.

 We arrived here on Thursday and booked into a camp on the Gorge Road.  This is a real tropical setting with each camp site surrounded by palm trees and bamboo.  It is like having God’s air conditioning working for you.

Friday we spent most of the day in Katherine Gorge starting with a boat trip in the morning and I having a long trek in the afternoon.  Hence it goes without saying that we slept well that night.  The Gorge is really magnificent although our photos are a little flat because of a light smoke haze hanging in the gorge.  All through the territory they are burning off grass slowly to reduce the fuel before fire danger time.  They use a chequered process of burning much like a drafts board where they burn an area, then leave, then burn another area.  Then they return later to burn the in-between areas left from the first stage.  This reduces the chance of it getting out of control.  The fires burn very slowly at this time of year but because there is little wind the smoke settles in the valleys & gorges.

There are 13 gorges in the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park.  These are all on the Katherine River but are separated by rock walls or falls.  We travelled up the three longest gorges by boat.  To do this we have to walk over the rocks between each gorge and board another boat.  Let us share some of the scenes we enjoyed.

There was some amazing Aboriginal Art on the walls of the gorge.  Considering that the water level has climbed up to 13 metres higher in some past wet seasons it is incredible that it is still there for us to enjoy.

 

Katherine is quite a thriving centre commercially although most of this is centred on service supporting the indigenous peoples and also in tourism.  Nearby is the RAAF Tindal Air Base.  There is also a developing agriculture industry with peanuts, mangoes, fruit & beef.  None of these are large enough in themselves to be a major financial influence but cumulatively they are very supportive for the area.

Katherine is the first large town a traveller comes to if moving north form Qld or SA and it is also the crossroad for those coming over from WA, in particular the Kimberley’s.  There are caravans & motor homes everywhere.  There is a Tourist Information Centre set up by the town council and it has a car park just for vans & motor homes.  It is almost always full.

The Katherine River is a fast flowing stream so there are several small races.  There are also hot springs here in Katherine and also at Mataranka about 100klms south.  There also some limestone caves near the town.  Most people are very “well tanned” as I heard it said on the CB radio as we entered.

Lower Level Nature Reserve - Katherine

Today we booked out of the park and went to church.  Some of you might be aware of David & Norma Ironside who are heading up the COC here.  Then after lunch we headed north for Kakadu.  So here we are on the banks of Harriett Creek with several other campers enjoying the peace & quiet of the countryside – well we will when some of our fellow campers turn their generators off.

Harriett Creek - We are camped about 20 m from this babbling Brook