To the Gulf and Beyond!

Today is Day 25 – Tues 16^th June.

It has been a few days since I last ‘blogged’. Even though we had phone reception in Katherine, my data usage on my phone is getting high, as I had my first warning from Telstra. I am not sure how much I have left now, so I will do this one, as we are about to lose reception for a 3 days or so.

I told you last time we were doing both a helicopter and a boat ride. Well that was a few days ago now and they were both great.

Wendy, myself and the boys did the boat ride in 1991 – the boys were 4 & 6, but this time we seemed to see more, seemed to be less distracted, and we heard more of the history….I wonder why that is????

The chopper ride was great. The crew were very helpful, knew their stuff, had good humour and were very friendly. We took the 8 x gorge trip, with an extra 15 mins where we landed on the top of a gorge, got out, wandered around a bit, had a Kodak moment in front of the chopper, then headed home again. It was well worth it. The little Robinson 44 bumped around a bit, but did a great job. The river is very low at present due to the drought up here in the north, and trying to imagine what it would be like in a big wet was mind boggling. The pilot showed us the levels when the flood was on, and it is very hard to imagine so much water. It would be great to come back in the wet.

I did take a GoPro video of the whole trip if anyone wants to see it J.

On our 3^rd day in Katherine, we went down to the hot springs – the same ones we went to in 1991, but they looked a bit more organised. We recognised it straight away as the ones we used to walk to behind the caravan park we called home because we were stuck there for 7 days with a blown head gasket. No blown head gasket on this trip. I think the cruiser is built a little stronger than the VL commodore was.

We packed up early on the last day as we wanted to get further north as fast as we could to get good camp sites in Litchfield NP. I was going to take us about 4 hrs, so instead we opted to go to Daly River first, as it borders Litchfield, so when we left Day River, it wouldn’t take as long, even though we have to go back out to the main highway. There is a 4WD track which saves a lot of kms, but K&B cannot do it as there is a 700m water crossing, and vans are not allowed.

So, where are we now, you ask? Well, I am sitting out in the dark, on our last night in Daly River. Originally we were going to stay at the pub, but the campground there is closed until further notice, so we were lucky enough to be told by the local constabulary, on the UHF, that the mango farm has a camp ground. It is so beautiful here. We are right on the river, with our own ramp and pontoon mooring, so we put the boat in yesterday, and fished all day today in it. K got a small sooty gruner (refer pic) this morning, and this afternoon he hooked up a big Barra, but unfortunately it broke him off. He saw it jump out of the water, and as he was reeling in his loose line, I turned around to see the Barra doing a ‘Flipper’ by doing a tail dance along the water. His whole body was out of the water and he was moving along on his tail…with K’s lure still in his mouth. He flicked his head and out came the lure, and off he took, never to be seen again. We motored over and picked up the floating lure. K was quite happy about that, but would have traded it for the Barra in the boat. I estimated it would have been at least 60cm, so was very legal. The rest of the fishing party didn’t catch anything, but as he was the skipper and master of the vessel, he can be excused.

We saw 5 crocs, the largest being about 3m. Apparently, that is nothing in this river. When we were putting the boat in yesterday at the ramp, we were told by our neighbour that the boat ramp, and a very large croc hit the news last week on TV! Good thing they caught it and re-located it.

The photos below will give you a glimpse of the camp site here. It is very beautiful, but I don’t think the girls will be back. They don’t like fishing and they definitely don’t like the mozzies here. I must admit that they are pretty vicious! There isn’t much to do in Daly River, unless you like fishing. The other campers here are nomads, but they have been coming here for years, and they stay for months sometimes. Wendy and Beryl would never do that. It is also very hot – it was 33deg C about 10am, with high humidity….

Anyway, the boat is loaded back on the car, and tomorrow we are off to Litchfield. We are looking very much forward to that, as everyone says it is beautiful. I hope we can get into the caravan park, and get sites together. We shall see…..I hope you enjoy the pile of photos below…

Katherine Gorge by air...that is the NP HQ in the photo

very beautiful..

Katherine Gorge is the home of the Rainbow Serpent, the creator of the aboriginal legends

He lives in this part of the gorge....it is 50m deep.

We landed on the rock in the top left of this shot.

Here we are!

Wendy was in the front on the way home...

We found Amelia Eirhardt's plane....it was 'parked' on the road out to the gorge..

This is the track you have to walk between the 1st and 2nd gorge..

Beryl doing the walk...

Amazing rock features..

it was early morning..

swallows making nests under a ledge above the water...

We saw this 'freshie' croc just before we returned to the wharf..

As it was the dawn cruise, we had breakie afterwards on the deck...so did these guys - Blue Faced Honeyeaters.

These 2 Blue Winged Kookaburras called in too. These are different to ours at home, and their 'laugh' doesn't make the grade at all.

K's van was completely covered in dust, so he washed it in Katherine, except for the spare tyre cover, which he only washed the bottom web-site name. I added the two dots to make it look better...