Advertisement
Published: November 21st 2017
Today we head for Darwin. Perhaps a little less heat but certainly a lot more humidity awaits. It was nice having a vehicle in Katherine since it’s pretty difficult to get around otherwise. Our first stop of the day was the School of the Air but we had mistakenly thought it was open to visitors. We almost visited a local diggeridoo shop, but the caretaker could not find the proper key. It was kind of a cool location though, under a huge mango tree with chicken running around freely.
The Katherine History Museum is a must stop on this visit. Great history, many antique farm implements, vehicles and the Gypsy Moth that Dr. Clyde Fenton flew, after crashing three others. We watched a video on the disastrous 1998 Katherine flood. Having seen the Gorge from within, film of it raging during that event was horrifying, as were the images of the destruction and rescue and rebuilding after. Today we saw many new homes built on stilts to prevent the kinds of massive losses that occurred in 1998.
It was easy to find a really cool local swimming hole, except there is warm water at Katherine Hotsprings. There was a
Didgeridoo shop in Katherine
Of course this is not the shop, Since the man could not find the right key. The big old mango tree goes welll with the brick entry. warning sign for both salties and freshies, but we didn’t see any. The bus stop is located very conveniently next to the Thrifty car rental and we had some time to chat with some people. An Aboriginee woman was heading to Darwin as well and we leared that she manages a large contract to harvest produce at farms throughout the region. She employs up to 500 workers per season, including 275 for the mango harvest that ran from September to today. Workers are primarily 6-month seasonal workers from the Pacific islands. We include this as a positive experience we had with Aboriginees, which is refreshing. It was interesting that the owner of the mango farm was there also, and he demonstrated how to play our newly acquired didgeridoo. We got it at The Katherine Museum and it is hollowed by termites and locally painted. Our friend said it plays well and we got a good price and other Aboriginee folk traveling on the Darwin bus also commented favourably on our instrument.
On the way to Darwin, we had one torrential downpour but is was over in 30 minutes. Vegetation changed rapidly from the desert gum trees to much more
Katherine Hot Springs
Marion got her feet wet. We were not really set up to swim, since everything was packed and we did not want to travel with wet clothes. lush growth and palm trees. The Palm City Resort where we’re staying is a dream after roughing it in The Outback. Beautiful grounds, friendly staff and a nice and clean room with private seating outside among lush trees and bushes. And, we’re here for four nights!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.342s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 53; dbt: 0.2941s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
