2002/11 Australia trip - Nitmiluk and Katherine Gorge |
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This was the last day of our cross-country trip. There was a steady stream of road trains coming south from Darwin, but the Stuart Highway is a good, two-lane road the whole way. There were lots of dead kangaroos, and groups of kites eating them. The kites are beautiful, hawk-like birds. They look well fed.
We were also well fed. We passed a “Devon Teas” sign in Larrimah, and this resulted in an emergency stop and U-turn into “Fran’s”. This turned out to be a funny little building with a plastic fly screen over the door. After stepping over the dog we found Fran sitting in the front room. She went off to make the scones and waved at a table full of cups and jars and said “You make your own tea or coffee. The stuff’s all there.”
When she came back with the scones she asked “Do you mind if I sit with you and talk?” So that’s how we found out about the Bali bombing, as we hadn’t been able to pick up any radio for a few days. She also mentioned that her drinking water came from their rainwater tanks and that it hadn’t rained since February!
A couple from Darwin came in soon after, and they raised their eyebrows when they saw the layout, but I guess they were hungry too so they sat down with us. Fran explained that the building used to be Larrimah’s police station. She and her husband lived next door and bought it when they retired, and it was now her business. I don’t think that she was getting rich but she was getting a steady stream of people to talk to.
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Road to Katherine (2.41) |
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We got to Katherine, a fair-sized town, in mid-afternoon, with enough time to stock up on food and beer. Our destination was Nitmiluk National Park, about twenty miles east of town. On the way there we passed a sign for “Scenic Flight of a Lifetime”. Fifty yards on there was a wrecked airplane.
Somebody’s sense of humour?
The road followed the Katherine River, which is notorious for massive floods during the wet season. The 
road had high-water signs well over our heads, but this was the end of the “Dry” and the river wasn’t even in
sight.
The campground was inside the park, where the river emerged from Katherine Gorge. 
We checked into the campground, just time for a walk above the river to the cliff wall and then up to an overlook to watch the sunset. The campground seemed to be full of Germans in their rented Britz campers. We could hear a constant click of 
cans opening late into the night.
There was also plenty of wildlife, kangaroos and wallabies hovering around to see if anyone dropped any food, and lots of birds, mainly apostle birds and blue-faced honey eaters looking for something to steal.
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Tuesday October 15th
I had persuaded Sandie that a kayak trip up the Katherine Gorge would be much more fun than a boat cruise, so we rented this bright yellow plastic double kayak. We were told that we didn’t need to worry about the crocodiles in the river. They are freshies, not salties. Salties can grow to twenty feet and 
will hunt and eat people. The salties may get into the river when it floods during the Wet, 
but they’re trapped by the park rangers at the beginning of the Dry and returned to the more northerly rivers. Freshies are less than nine feet long and are harmless unless you annoy them. This just left us with one question “What are the freshies annoyed by?”
At this time of the year the Katherine River is just a series of long lakes framed by high gorge walls, and 
linked by rapids and waterfalls. The kayak was very solid and heavy, but there was little current so kayaking upstream was OK. All the way up, there were beautiful sandy beaches but all had signs saying “Croc nesting site – stay out”. We could see the tracks where crocs go up and down the beach. It was already extremely hot, but much better than it would have been on the trails, most of which followed the cliff tops.
The rapids were tough – very slippery, with large toe crushing rocks. We both fell in numerous times. We were too busy to care about any crocs. We tried portaging around the rapids but the trail was too narrow and rocky, and the kayak was very heavy. Despite all this it was a great trip, with towering red cliffs around us, weird plants, and all kinds of birds. It was also sunny. Very sunny! We got fried.
Sandie found a sick parrot at the water’s edge and tried to rescue it but it took a bite at her so we abandoned it. There are thirteen consecutive gorges on the Katherine, but we only got as far as looking across the third, so there’s plenty left for another day on another trip.
On the way back we kayaked into a cave looking for bats, and found that we were being 
trailed by this little pink nose, zigzagging through the water. It turned out to be a pig-nose turtle, begging for food. We gave it an apple core and it rushed towards the back of the cave, hoping to get its prize away from the fish that were following it. Instead, it met another turtle, 
had a quick fight, and then retreated into deeper water with the fish in pursuit. Sandie gave the loser another core, which it took most graciously and then also shot off into deeper water. After all that excitement, we did find some small bats, hanging from the cave’s ceiling.
On the way back through the rapids, we unloaded the kayak and hung everything on 
Sandie to carry along the trail. With all the load gone, I blasted the kayak over and around the rocks and 
down the waterfalls, much faster and easier than the way up. I can see why the kayaks need to be built so strongly! The rest of the trip back was a leisurely float with a tail wind.
Back at the campground, we still had enough time and energy left for a hike over the bluffs, but we found that the bush around the trail had been burned, and the heat coming off the black areas was overwhelming, so we just watched another sunset and then collapsed into bed.
What followed would become known as the Night of the Ants. We’d brought the garbage bucket inside because we didn’t want the wildlife to spread it around, and the ants had come in with the bucket. Luckily they were the big black ones that don’t bite rather than the little red ones that do, but it’s still hard to sleep with ants crawling all over your body and up your nose. Dead bodies surrounded us in the morning.