HOME | ABOUT US | CONTACT

Highlights  -  2

[ Up ] [ Next ]

Kakadu National Park cont.

World Heritage listed Kakadoo National Park is one of Australia's most prized cultural and ecological treasures.   The 20,000sq kms is 250kms south of Darwin.

Jabiru - Yellow River

Yes the moon is still high in the sky..zzzz..

ah...the signs weren't joking.  This was the first of many, the largest we saw was three and a half metres long!

cormorant drying his feathers after early morning fishing.  Laurie still looking for kingfishers!

Eureka!  After 11 years (it's a long story) Laurie bags his wild kingfisher...break out the bubbly!!

Another kingfisher..Laurie's died and gone to heaven!

On to Twin Falls which requires some pretty rough driving taking some 4 hours driving for the round trip.

Our first river crossing.  We trusted the advice that our vehicle would get through without too much trouble as wading through the water to test the depth didn't seem a good idea.

The water is up the side of the doors, but we keep going and out the other side...phew!

A boat takes us up river closer to the falls

This float has been used to monitor the crocodile activity.  The smaller holes are caused by freshwater crocs, the big ones by the infamous man-eating salties.

the falls eventually come into sight

We are the only people there so the self-timer works (3rd time lucky!)

We look really cool, but it's around 40C and the sweat is running into our eyes (mixed with fly repellent ..ouch!)

our transport arrives to take us out of the gorge

Disaster! Probably at least two days from any rescue our trusty vehicle refuses to start.  Will the water hold out?  After some very worrying minutes we manage to bypass the electronics that have got themselves confused and the engine fires.  Phew!!! that was a VERY welcome sound.

Laurie seems to be enjoying himself..

Katherine

After the Yellow River and the Twin Falls adventure we continued several hundred kilometres down the road to the relative metropolis of Katherine. (hey it's got a Woolworths! .... in fact that's all it has got!).  Katherine Gorge was our focus which has been renamed a catchy 'Nitmiluk'.

A two hour boat trip is secured and we set off down a pretty river.

The river turns into a towering gorge which is really impressive.  Although there is not a breath of air.

The river is low.  We have to walk between the gorges and transfer from one boat to another.

The second gorge is breathtaking

Off the boat and we decide to tough it out and have a picnic outside.  What is not apparent is that the picnic bench was so hot it was painful to sit on.  I think we're having fun.

Seriously, this is really hot conditions, and we are only at the start of the heat for the Northern Territory.  The high humidity combined with temperature hovering around 40C takes some managing.  Our respect for the early pioneers has risen significantly.

We admitted defeat at this point (2pm) and drove back to Katherine and an air-conditioned  mega shop at Woolworths (our equivalent of Tesco). 

We stocked up for the next 11 days as we are not really going to encounter anything as big as Katherine until we get to Broome.
 

This included 50 litres of water, another crate of 'VB' beer, more wine, port ('on offer') . Oh...and some food!