2006/07 Australia trip - Flora River |
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July 2006
Dear All,
At the end of Part 1 we had just left Katherine in the Northern Territory, and were heading west along the Victoria Highway towards Gregory and Keep River national parks and the border with Western Australia. In contrast to our trip north to Darwin, this was going to be all new territory for us. It also promised to be quieter, away from the more popular and accessible parks of the Northern Territory’s Top End.
Wednesday June 28th
The Victoria Highway is a good, blacktop road, with little traffic. The first fifty miles were typical of the Top End, dry forest with an understory of millions of knee-high rectangular termite mounds, rather like driving through an enormous cemetery.
We turned north for another fifty miles of quite good gravel road with a single water crossing, passing through the same kind of scenery until we came to the tropical jungle of Flora River nature park.
We set up camp there and took a couple of short hikes to waterfalls. Both of them are made of tufa. The water from the springs that feed the river is loaded with calcium carbonate which then precipitates out from the water as it cools, and this tufa coats the river bed, creating dams and eventually, waterfalls. The first of these waterfalls, Djarrung Falls, is just a couple of feet high but it bridges the whole river bed, rather like the falls at Mataranka. The setting for the falls is beautiful, as the gorge is a mass of green jungle around the turquoise-blue waters of the river, with the white froth of the falls. It would be an idyllic spot for a swim if the river wasn’t home to saltwater crocodiles! No swimming in this park.
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Flora River (6.29) |  |
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The other waterfall, Katherine Falls, is just as pretty, but grander as the tufa dam is maybe 15 feet high. The falls form a great rambling horseshoe, but they can’t be viewed completely from the ground because of the jungle. The best spot for taking a picture would be the centre of the horseshoe, but anyone standing in the middle of the river would not be there for long!
I took another walk along a bench above the river, taking care to stay well above the lunging distance of the standard crocodile. I didn’t see any crocs but there were plenty of butterflies. That evening we sat and 
watched the wallabies feeding in the field in front of our camp site. It was very peaceful for us comparedtothe bustle of Katherine, but the wallabies would occasionally get agitated and rush past us in the gloom,like in the picture.
Sandie reported that night that the ladies’ bathroom had the largest spider she’d ever seen. I couldn’t tell if the gents’ had a similar treasure as we didn’t have any lights in ours.
Thursday June 29th
We awoke to a cloudy morning, our first in weeks. It was still warm and very humid. We drove to the end of the park’s road and the old campground. There were a couple of places for getting down to the river, which was still that 
unbelievable turquoise-blue even on a cloudy morning. Some of the glacial lakes in the Canadian Rockies have a similar colour but they, of course, are icy cold, whereas this water is warm enough to keep both humans and crocodiles happy.
The boat launch there is a neat device, with rails to carry the boat up and down a steep river bank, and a winch to haul it out. I’m sure somebody must have tried riding a canoe straight down. You’d probably get a big enough splash to keep the crocs away for a while.