Under the trees at Katherine

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After leaving the Timber Creek caravan park this morning, we retraced our steps west, to look at Gregory’s tree, We'd passed the turn off a couple of times on our last trip, so decided this time we'd have a look. There is a large boab tree near the Victoria River and it is here where the explorer, Augustus Gregory and his party, who were exploring the interior of the north, set up camp for nine months in 1855-56. They built make-shift dwellings, a landing stage on the river from their ship's ballast and a vegetable garden. He grew up in Australia, so had a good knowledge of bush craft which made his exploration so successful. When they arrived, he carved the date of his arrival on the tree and again the date the party left the camp.

Then we drove up a high hill to a lookout where we could look down to the Victoria River. There was a memorial there to the North Australia Observer Unit - the NAOU’s - nicknamed the Nackeroos who were the group formed in 1942, to monitor thousands of kilometres of sparsely inhabited coastline of the North and be on the lookout for possible Japanese invasion. I hadn’t realised that Broome, as well as Darwin, was bombed by the Japanese in 1942.

On then to Katherine. We are back at the Low Level Caravan Park where we stayed last time we visited Katherine. It is grassed and has lovely white gums, a good pool and evening entertainment. We went for a swim once we’d set up and there met a family we’d met in the pool at Kununurra. They are travelling around Australia, have been on the road for four months and have five young girls, including 10 months old twins. A medal for that woman!

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