Katherine the Never Never

 

Katherine 

We made it to Katherine today easy drive. First stop Caravan fix it place. The leaf springs are done!!! There are vans parked everywhere out the front and all down the street in various states of disrepair. The guy inside (Chris) knows his stuff and can have the parts by Monday, however it is Friday so we have to sit out the weekend. Super detective Adam has noticed amongst the red dirt covering the van that there is a mist of oil sprayed over the back of car and front of Van…….. Bloody Hell what next? There is a Isuzu dealer in Katherine so we head there. We become very familiar with the industrial estate. The dealer tells us it would be 3 weeks!!!! Our car is still under warranty.  I make a call to head office low and behold we can take the car in Monday.

We set up camp down at Katherine Gorge nice spot in the national park. The park is leased to the NT government from the Jawoyn People. The park is known as Nitimiluk. We do a gorge boat cruise the best way to see the gorge. It is beautiful. Mother Nature she soothes my soul.

The trees are full and I mean full of Bats. There are flying foxes and the little red bats in the trees. They hang like Christmas decorations. Nash describes their movements along the branches like Ninja Warrior on the obstacle course. They take flight on dusk and wow what a privilege to watch. Maya describes it as a BATNADO!!!!! They fill the sky. Some can been seen with their babies underneath as they fly by. It is advisable to take a hat as where there are bats there is bat poo!

                                      We walked the escarpment at sunset for an incredible view.

We spent Sunday at Edith falls. It is still part of the park just few kms up the rd. There is a walk up to the top pools which in my opinion is a better spot to swim than down below. It’s an easy walk up with a bit of rock hopping at the end. We swam under the falls and looked for fish great day.

However Monday not so good dropped van at place to be fixed and yet more caravans out the front!!!! The car was dropped at the dealer early morning also.  Off we go no home no car, so on foot to the hot springs in Kathrine they are lovely fresh clean water at about 30 degrees. After about 4 hours we were suitably wrinkly so thought we would walk into town. It’s about a 40 minute walk in the sun hooray. Lunch at the finch café, yum waffles for kids and rice paper rolls for me. (Here is a tip if in Kathrine just about everything closes at 2pm.) The phone call from dealer is don’t have the parts to fix your car!!!!!!!! I wonder why they would have it all day to tell us that. Not happy Jan. We will have to back track to Kathrine in a few days so they can fix it. The van is fixed but not until 6.00pm but they were great not leaving us without a home big shout out to Chris and Jess thanks. And Jess don’t give up on the PHD you have a great insight xo

                                            Jess and Chris from  Caravan's In Katherine

                                                    

We spend the day at Cutta Cutta caves. Cutta Cutta is the Jawoyn Peoples word for many stars. Was a interesting tour with local guide. The caves have a lot of history. One storey was that during war time the soldiers would go inside and let off 303 rifles. The point of this was so they went deaf and would be discharged from service. It also did a lot of damage to the cave system. The aboriginal people did not use the caves as they believed that bad spirits lived inside. When they did enter the caves with scientists later they named it place of many stars ( Cutta Cutta) as the stone inside sparkles.

                                                     

                                                     

We met some great Neighbours at our camp site that had offered to pick us up and drop us off when necessary from the caravan and dealer place thanks Brett and Carolyn see you in SA!!

Feature Creature 

Kermie The frog

And Steve the The red winged Parrot