Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2022
Edit Blog Post
A short walk from our hostel to where we were picking up the rental car and there were no cars there. It was okay as we and another couple were collected and brought to the airport car rental place and worked out well for us as they had pool noodles to lend us for our trips to any of the springs and natural pools that were around (we were told to purchase them for this reason).
A quick stop for breaky and food supplies and we were on our way to Katherine, a 3 + hour journey.
Parts of the highway you can go 130 km/hr which at first seemed fast but by the end of the trip when we had to slow down to 100 felt normal and 100km slow as.
We passed half a dozen wrecks on the side of the road, including one we thought was recent and we stopped to make sure that no one was hurt. We navigated through 2 storms where visibility with the Windscreen wipers on at full meant you could only see a couple of meters in front of us and wondered if the wrecks were from storms like these, the 130km hour driving speed or the wild cows, bison and horses that were regularly signed on the road to beware of roaming stock (We saw many of these in amongst trees near the road and a bison carcass on the side of the road. We had already seen what hitting a horse would do to a vehicle when we collected our car and a crumpled vehicle sat in the parking lot. There were many shredded tyres and tyre marks along the journey so we made sure we paid close attention to the road.
The landscape on either side of the road is made up of lush green trees and palms, termite mounds of all sides, waterways and swamps and in places rocks as old as the earth itself. Flying above us were many a peregrine falcon and occasional crow.
Arriving in Katherine, a hot dry heat of 38 degrees, we checked into our accommodation, the Pine Tree hotel which had nice rooms, a lovely pool area and a buffet breakfast.
We had seen a sign for Katherine Springs and decided to check it out. It's 5 minutes from town and there is a top pool of crystal clear water you start at and head over a small waterfall into the next section which you float through as the current carries you. The visibility was 100% and there were little fish in the water above you were shared by a variety of fossil trees with the sound of bats, birds and flowing water making this such an amazing experience. Of course, I mermaided...
We stopped to get alcohol on the way back to our hotel and police needed to check and scan your ID before any alcohol purchase.
A quick change for dinner and we went to the Country Club as there were not many options to eat, a few places having closed down. The steak meal was good and again we needed to scan ID to be able to enter an establishment that sold alcohol or maybe it was because we weren't members....
We ended the evening with a dip in the hotel pool and the air was still warm but a nice summer night to have a beer by the pool kind of night.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0577s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb