Heading west

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After Kakadu we stopped overnight at Katherine to replenish our supplies.

The evening was entertaining. First we had fighter jets screaming overhead numerous times. We assumed that it was the guys from Tindal base practicing night manoeuvres.

We have come to the conclusion that we must look approachable. After dinner as we sat outside sipping our wine, a young Chinese man approached us and asked if he could borrow an implement to cook his 2 minute noodles. Then his three companions appeared, to join in the plea. The two boys and two girls sounded a little desperate so we loaned them our wok. They were heading to Darwin to try to find work.

The next day we headed west. As we approached Timber Creek the countryside changed. We began seeing spectacular escarpments, lots of creeks and the Victoria River, where Greg finally got to wet a line.

Everywhere there are lots of trees, but despite this there is little effective shade. We had a very hot lunch at a picnic rest stop.

As we pressed on we began to notice more and more dust devils. These started quite small but soon we were seeing three or four at a time. A number of these were very large and looked like tornadoes, stretching at least a kilometre into the sky, complete with dark ‘ropy’ texture. We assume they were picking up ash from the regular fire zones. We did not want to drive into one of these with the caravan as even small ones tossed us about. Although we tried they did not photograph well.

At Timber Creek we had a shady camp and the coldest pool we have experienced.

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Photos

The NT countryside looks quite dense.
Easy to see why cattle do well here.

The nearby creek was kind of eerie.
We know that there are at least 8 freshwater crocodiles in there.