2006/06 Australia trip - Douglas Hot Springs |
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The last stretch of the Old Jim Jim Road goes through military land, fenced on both sides and carrying dire warnings of what might happen to trespassers. Eventually the road comes out on the Arnhem Highway, heading towards Darwin.
We were planning on a short cruise on the Adelaide River Queen, to see some crocs in safety. This part of the river is outsidethe national park’s area, so the commercial operators can do much as they like. This outfit must have got into the habit of feeding the crocodiles to guarantee that their customers would see some. So now they 
travel up the river dangling pork chops from a pole in order to persuade the crocs to come out to the boat and perhaps to make a jump for the chop. It’s good entertainment, but you have to wonder about the dangers of training the crocs to take bait. I wouldn’t want to be in a fishing boat on that stretch of river. From what we could see there was a large male saltie for about every hundred yards of the Adelaide River.
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We were going to Katherine for shopping and laundry before heading out west towards Broome, but it was too late to get there in daylight, so we headed for Douglas Hot Springs. This took us along the Old Stuart Highway again and then about half an hour on the Oolloo Road.
The park is famous for its birds and its springs. The birds are mainly sulphur-crested cockatoos (see 
picture) and galahs, hundreds of them, in a very noisy duet. The springs come out of the hillside just above the river and they are really hot, enough to scald, so the trick is to find one of the pools where the hot from the springs meets the cool of the river, and pick a spot that’s at about the right temperature.
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Douglas Hot Springs (5.16) |
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Tuesday June 27th
As you might expect, it was a very noisy dawn chorus, with squadrons of galahs going out to feed, and cockatoos screaming at each other from the tree tops. We were also heading out, this time south to Katherine for some shopping and laundry and the Internet.