The last State in Australia.
We are sitting in the shade of palm trees, writing this blog. Perspiration is beading our foreheads, and our drinks are trying to stay cold in "stubbie" holders. We are all alone at this beautiful holiday park in Katherine. We have made it finally to the last state of Australia, The Northern Territory.
We crossed the border at around lunch time yesterday and promptly lost 1.30hrs. As they do not have daylight saving up here. We stopped of course to take a photograph, of the sign welcoming us into N.T. We also took a photo of the black thunderstorm we had just left behind.
The Storm!!!!
After leaving Kununurra we had decided to go to Lake Argyle and the Ord Dam. It was a 34km journey off the highway. There are flood way signs along all the roads in Australia and this road turned out to be no different. However because of the rain, the first in 4 weeks, one of these flood ways was filling up with water. Now our little car would not have been able to go through if the water had got any higher, so we turned around.
Arriving in Katherine we went to the information centre and booked onto the NitNit dreaming boat tour, covering two gorges, including Katherine Gorge. We then went to "Shady Lane" tourist park. Early evening was spent in the pool. Nice!
This morning we were up early and headed for Nitmiluk National Park. I am not sure if we told you about Tracey, she was a lady we met at the Flashpackers in Port Campbell all those weeks ago. She was travelling in the opposite direction to us and was aiming to get to Darwin by the 24th March. We made a joke at the time, that we should meet up for dinner. Ha Ha. Well this morning she was on the same NitNit Dreaming boat tour. Because of all the flooding in Queensland she was in the area earlier than expected. There was only about 18 of us on this trip, so the chances of us meeting up again over the thousands of km's that we have both traveled, on the same day, on the same tour is nothing short of miraculous. I wonder what the odds on that would have been?
Katherine Gorge.
Branches in the fork of the tree, courtesy of flood waters.
Anyway the trip was fantastic, informative and very relaxing. It boggles the brain to imagine these gorges in flood. There were a lot of tell tale signs showing one were the flood waters reach at different times. The above picture tells such a story. However there were a lot of other signs, including a life vest stuck halfway up the sheer rock face, courtesy of a previous flood. One of the sheer rock walls in one of the gorges appeared in the final scene in the movie "Jedda" filmed in 1954.
The rock face facing you, next to the boats appears in the film Jedda.
Afterwards we had a sandwich at the park visitors centre with Tracey, when Wendy wandered over to speak to the local Aboriginal artist John Dewar. He was busy with a painting of a lizard. He offered to sell Wendy two small paintings, one of a catfish and one of a barramundi (fish). These were bought straight away. One thing we have found is that Aboriginal paintings are not cheap. However we did visit Mimi Arts and Craft, the centre where he sells through. We met another artist Marilyn Nakamarra, one of her paintings were going for $8000.00. However we bought another John Dewar and a small painting by Marilyn.
All told we have had a lovely time in Katherine, tomorrow we are heading for Kakadu!
Hope's Blog.............. When Mummy and Daddy were buying the aboriginal artwork, I decided to buy some as well. So I bought a painting from the artist that was there, Marilyn. She told me that it was of women dancing at a ceremony. I liked that.
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