Katherine & Kakadu

 

So we finally make into the Northern Territory and our first destination was Katherine.  We didn’t arrive until late afternoon and headed straight for the Nitmiluk National Park to camp. Nitmiluk National Park  has a series of gorges. Previously named Katherine Gorge National Park. The gorges and the surrounding landscape have great ceremonial significance to the local Jawoyn people, who are custodians of Nitmiluk National Park. In  Jawoyn , Nitmiluk means "place of the cicada dreaming”. Within minutes of pulling into our campsite, we had ditched the car and trailer; and headed straight for the pool to cool ourselves off. In the evening  as we prepared dinner (well, I say we… I mean Katrina!. I handle the refreshments i.e, Beer!!) We had some dinner guests arrive.

Next morning at the crack of dawn, actually maybe a few hours later than that, we booked a river cruise to see three of the thirteen gorges that the National Park has to offer. We had a local aboriginal guide on the cruise, who was very funny and informative. We got to see a lot of wildlife and were treated to a swim in one of the gorges, along with some refreshments. After the boat trip, we visited the local hot springs in the town of Katherine. The water itself wasn’t very hot, more of a luke warm, which wasn’t a problem in this heat. As we relaxed in the springs, I managed to make friends with a couple of aboriginal kids and not long after I was launching them out of the water into the air, much to their delight.

We left Katherine the next day and made our way to Kakadu, stopping  to visit Eden Falls which is a beautiful swimming stop.

 

The swim at Eden falls had freshen us both up, so as we were talking and singing along in the car on our merry way to a camp ground in Kakadu. Disaster stuck!, our beloved ‘Dirty Moo’ started to cough and splatter. The engine light came on and we had no other choice except to pull over. It was apparent to us what had happened, as soon as the bonnet was lifted stream was pouring out and a horrible hissing noise could be heard. We knew the problem was the radiator and all the water had gone. Both our phones were out of reception and no one was answering on the CB radio. Also there were no cars to flag down and ask for assistance. However our saving grace was the GPS, It was able to pick up our location and show we were only 4/5 km’s away from a roadhouse. We waited for the engine to cool down, whilst fighting off the endless attack of flies and then slowing managed to drive the car in the roadhouse to use their public phone to call roadside assistance. It took almost three hours for the recovery truck to reach us and then a further two hours to tow us into Jaburi the nearest town about 200km of where we broke down. we arrived in the dark, the recovery guy was kind enough to drop our trailer in caravan park.

It only took them two days to fix the car. so with spent that time by the pool in the caravan park.  With the new radiator in and the all clear from the mechanic we headed back down the road to where we had planed to visit (just 40ks from where we broke down). We pulled into Gunlom with little expectation of there being any water in the pools, what with it being the very end of the dry season.  We were pleasantly surprised to find not only a trickle of water coming over the falls but a large pool to swim in. 

We got talking to a German guy who told us about the climb to the top of the falls and the additional pools to swim in up there. We decided to leave the walk to later when the weather had cooled down. However I don’t think it would have mattered it we had done the climb in 10 degrees instead of 26 degrees it was hard but so worth it.

Back at camp we lit a fire (not for warmth but to get rid of the wood we have been carrying since SA)and sat under the stars watching reruns of old UK sitcoms…..Perfect evening.

The following morning we woke to an unexpected sound at the back of the tent, to our surprise we had around ten wild horses grazing not 15 metres from the tent.

We set off early to do a couple of walks before heading back to Jabiru  for the night. First of these was at the Yellow Water Wetlands which are part of the South Alligator river floodplains. We couldn’t do the whole walk as the middle section was closed due to wild buffalo in the area. The bit we did do took you along the waters edge where we were lucky enough to see this guy……. First of all we thought he was stalking us but we soon realised it was a fish that he managed to catch right in front of us.

The next walk was at Gun-gardun, which took us on a 2km hike through the bush the only animal we spotted on this was the Dingo pictured above. From here we did the Billabong walk which was just a shady walk to the river pictures above.

From here it was back to Jabiru for a dip in the pool and a well earn rest before our drive to Darwin.