Wow have we been busy!

Ok so I didn’t blog yesterday, I had a day off… I am on holidays you know!!

Actually, it was because I like to blog in the morning. It is cooler and quieter before everyone else gets up, and yesterday we had a bit of an early start having to leave the caravan park by 6am to get to Nitmuluk Gorge (more commonly known as Katherine Gorge) for a 7am breakfast cruise.

But before I tell you about yesterday, I had better quickly recap the day before…

Was a slow start day. We were supposed to push out of Katherine but as we had missed the booking on the breakfast cruise, we decieded to extend another night. Mark and I headed to reception about 9am to extend, and also got another bag of ice for the freezer. In this heat we have all become fans of icy cool drinks!

Once we had booked, at the request of Tara, I cooked the kids some pancakes on the BBQ. We then all slowly got ready spending most of the morning sitting in the cooler shade of the tree on the site next to us sipping icy cool drinks. Was probably 11:30am before we had all been through the shower, and well after 1pm by the time we decided to get in the car and head out! Hard to get motivated in this heat!

Anyway, our first stop was to see the Ghan roll through Katherine. We headed down the road towards the Springvale Homestead, one of the oldest still standing homesteads from the 1800’s in the area. The homestead is now a caravan park, but a sign on the gate indicated that it was closed. We headed back up the road to the railway crossing but as we were still about 20 mins early, the call came across the CB to head into town for Red Rooster. No arguments here so we headed off.

Now Red Rooster is not the fastest of drive through take aways and with three cars in front of us we realised we would probably miss the next day’s train before we got served! So we reversed out and bolted back out to see the train. Found a great little spot just off the road next to the crossing, pulled up, positioned the cars and waited…. and waited…. and waited!

Not one for sitting, I jumped out of the car and went for a walk down the 4WD track that lead under the bridge and down to the river. Fiona had made it pretty clear she didn’t want to drive down there… like I would have done that… actually I hate it when she can predicts me like that! I didn’t see it, but Mark said as I left the car, a small whirly whirly sprang up following me to the edge of the drop off before it dissipated. I must have been walking faster than I thought!!

I got down the track closer to the river, but there wasn’t much to see, so I returned to the car where I found Mark standing up on the road by the crossing. Joining him there, we couldn’t see the train as far as the eye can see and we began to worry that we had missed it. Well, only option was to drive to Katherine station. If the train wasn’t there then we hadn’t yet missed it and if not, we would see it at the station (stops for 4 hours).

Got to the station, but still no train (lucky). We found a position to wait and soon weren’t disappointed as the 1:40pm train finally arrived in Katherine at about 2:20pm. The train is rather impressive at about 1km long, took about 10 minutes for it to pull into the station. I wouldn’t want to be the one that has to run along the carriages putting all those steps in place!

Impressive as it was, by the time the train stopped, we were well on our way back to Red Rooster for a feed, then on to the local Museum. I enjoyed the Museum with the history of Katherine and the area, including early settlers, Aboriginals and the stolen generation, World War II and the bombing of Katherine and the great flood of 1998.

The flood of 1998 was interesting, and everyone was happy to sit and watch the DVD report about it (I think they just liked the air conditioning in this building). With 2m of water running down the main street of Katherine, there was a lot of water!! Really put it in perspective and later that day I drove the kids across the bridge over the river where the water had been almost lapping the road. There was a huge chasm below us and I think the gravity of the situation finally started to kick in!!

The Museum was only small, but they had packed tons of history into three or four buildings. Problem was, after the second building that was air-conditioned, everyone lost their desire to go further once back into the heat. I left everyone in the shade, and did the final two buildings myself. Also, being the only one with a hat (never leave the car without it), I enjoyed walking around inspecting all the old machinery sitting in the blistering heat out the back. There was a lot of old farm equipment and WWII machines including a “portable” compressor that was about the size of a caravan!!

As good as it was, I actually forgot to take any pictures!!

Hot and bothered, we piled back into the car to drive out to the Gorge to find out where it was, where we had to go tomorrow, and how long it would take us. Spent about an hour there inside the air conditioned discovery centre looking at the history of the gorge, how it was formed and some of the aboriginal folk lore of the area. Again I think everyone was just glad to be in the cool!

I wanted to take a trek up to the lookout, but unfortunately the track was closed for maintenance, so we had a quick look at the river and headed back to camp for a BBQ tea… early start in the morning…and it was….

I woke at 5am to give me plenty of time to wake up, and even had time for a shower before we left. I was finally brave enough to wake my beautiful sleeping wife (who actually was pretty good given the hour… she only bit my hand off, not my head!!! Just kidding, but my wife does like her sleep) at 5:45am, and by 6am we were on the road.

The cruise was amazing with a good feed on the first boat in gorge one before a short walk of about 400m to the second boat where we continued into gorge two. Got a little snap happy on this cruise, so I think I’ll let the pictures tell the story…

I know that was a lot of photos, but as I said, I got a little snap happy! My iPhone was almost dead by the time I got off the boat!! Was a great cruise and I’m glad we did it. Morning is the best time with a lovely 27 degrees (was already 36 by the time we got back to the caravan), everyone really enjoyed it. On the way back to the car, we stopped by the toilets and poor Tara got stuck in there with a broken lock. The cleaner pulled out her leatherman and attempted to open it before I was called in to save the day with my trusty pocket knife.

Now normally, this would be the end of the day’s activities, but the day had just began, we packed the vans for our final trip north to Batchelor on the edge of the Litchfield National park. Man was it hot when we got here and we decided that this would simply be a base that we use to explore… no sitting around the caravan here as it is simply too hot!!!

Set the vans up, had some lunch then loaded everyone in the car and headed into Litchfield. First stop was The Lost City. Natural sandstone pillars that look like the ruins of a city but are naturally formed. The Lost City is only accessible by 4WD, although I thought the track was simply a dirt road with a few corrugations! Not exactly what I call a 4WD track, but before we headed back out we did let some air out of the tyres for a smoother ride!

Didn’t explore too long due to the heat as the kids were all complaining and wanting to head to the rock pools for a swim. Back down the road, and we found a real treasure… The rock pools were amazing. Beautiful crystal clear water rushing down over the rocks and a number of very deep ponds that are safe to swim in… and by safe I mean no crocodiles 😉

With my mask and snorkel I was able to explore the ponds and one of them was about 5m deep!! Wish I brought my underwater housing because it would have made an awesome photo from the bottom looking up. Everyone had a ball swimming, jumping and snorkelling the pools. In fact we only got out when we realised it was almost 7pm!!!!

Heading back to the caravan with a promise to return, I noticed a car that had run off the road on a big corner. Worried that someone could be hurt, we turned around to inspect and with trepidation not knowing what we would find, Mark and I approached the car in the fading light.

Luckily no one was in there, although it was a little strange because the the doors were unlocked and the key in the ignition. My guess given where it was laying, the absence of tyre marks on the road, and the fact the air bag hadn’t deployed it was probably stolen and dumped. With no phone reception, we took GPS co-ordinates thinking to report it when we got back to town. On the way out, we passed a tow truck coming the other way that seemed to be searching the road. Given no one is hurt, I think we will just forget about it. Mind you if it is still there next time we head in, we will report it then.

Anyway, everyone is up now and very excited because it is Emma’s Birthday 🙂

Happy birthday Emma, hope you have a wonderful day. We have a big day planned, but I’ll save that surprise until tomorrow.