Its a long way to…
August 13th, 2007 | by lissie |Katherine - but we made it! Left Cairns Sat a week ago and got to Makaranka (100km odd south) yesterday - its a long long way - 6 days on dirt roads from Normanton. It was really quite excititing seeing a small shopping mall today in Katherine - this big town is all of 6500pop by the way!
Its getting warm now - low 30’s I think (havent seen a paper since Cairns either) but there is a big big advantage the NT has over Qlds - places you can swim in! We got to Lawn Hill which is nearly in NT and could finally go swimming and canoeing in the gorge - and we finally saw a crocodile - fortunately a fresh water one (they arent dangerous unless you annoy them) - the water was a lovely temperature too! In fact anything wet does after a few 100km of non-airconditioned dusty roads. 3 days later we got to Linman NP and camped at the only safe water hole to swim in the whole park - again a freshie lay on a log and watched us and the goanna watched him but it was lovely - amazingly some of the Australians would swim in it - given that free camping sites come with loos but no running water I wasnt letting any croc stop me having a bath!
Mataranka has a famous museum (its the station where We of the Never Never was written from) - and a very large termite mound (at the first diesel for nearly 400km) but we went - I bet you will surprised by this - to the hot pools - almost too hot really! Today we further investigated Mataranka discovering the swimming pontoons (a bit slimy) then the rapids (excellent and taught some strangers children how to rock hop- throw themselves and get to the other side before being swept into the rapids ) We then headed to the bitter springs hot river where the water is really clear and you float about 500m down the river with the current - so finally got Katherine - where there are a hot pools and a gorge - which we will have a look at tomorrow!
Must go now - and check out the swimming pool!
