Canoeing the Gorge

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With a pre-dawn wake up call, we were on the road by 6am. The whole day would be spent at Nitmiluk National Park, home of Katherine Gorge. We would be given 5.5 hours to canoe down the gorges, have lunch and return. After this we were heading into Kakadu to spend the night. This day would involve the most driving.

There is 13 gorges in total and we would be seeing 3 of them. During the dry season you can't access most of them because the water was too low and during the wet you can only use motor boats because of the strong currents. Along with the steep walls, there are quite a few nice beaches, but because of crocodile nesting areas, you can't land on them. Katherine Gorge has only fresh water crocs which are typically small and rarely aggressive. We were told it was very safe.

With some dumpy canoes and 95 degree heat, we started the trip. Paddling against the current, the one way trip was about 2 hours. After an hour for lunch, we made the lazy trip back. This was a laid back trip with just plenty of good views and eventually sore shoulders. We had about 3 hours of driving ahead of us before reaching the Maguk campground in Kakadu that we had to ourselves. That evening I got used to the swag and had an incredible, well needed sleep.

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Photos

Canoeing Partner
Grace & I after we tackled Gorge 1

Road Train
Truck with 3 huge trailers