Crikey mate there’s crocs at Katherine

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Our first stop on arriving at Katherine was the jolly old tourist info - always great for some revitalising aircon if nothing else. We picked up the odd bit of advice about road conditions etc., but what mainly sticks in my mind were the warnings about going in or near the rivers in town. Why? Well, this is crocodile country and apparently a big (like 3m) salt water croc or salty, had been seen just below one of the town’s bridges in the last week and hadn’t been caught yet. Katherine has had some pretty awesome floods in its time and on one famous occasion a croc was seen swimming up the aisles of Woolworths in the High Street - puts a stop to petty theft I guess.

Lexa was already having trouble sleeping in the van due to all the possible beasties (spiders, snakes etc. etc.) that might crawl in at night and slaughter us - particularly as we had to leave the boot of the van open to avoid dying of heat exhaustion. Anyway, it was taking quite a lot of persuasion every night to convince her that I had tucked in the mosquito net all the way around and nothing could get in and now the fear of crocodiles devouring us was further fuelling her imagination.

The croc in the photos is only a fresh water crocodile or freshy, which are apparently harmless, but I’m not sure I could remain very calm if I saw one swimming towards me! The guys in the helicopter are croc spotting (and terminating), as every year after the ‘wet’ (rainy season) salties make it inland to all sorts of places that they aren’t wanted and there is a period of checking and ‘removing’ before areas are confirmed as safe. Katherine Gorge is one of these areas, where later in the year people kayak and swim, safe in the knowledge that they probably won’t be eaten.

We decided to splash out and take a boat trip up the Katherine Gorge, which was really worthwhile and gave us a good appreciation of the landscape and how the big floods came about. The gorge is actually a series of faults within a raised plateau that collect the water from a wide area and spit it out across the flood plain near Katherine at the edge of the escarpment. At the height of the huge one (1999 I think) the water was 9m up the sides of the gorge that you can see in the pics - that’s a whole heap of water…

Back in town we took a dip in the crystal clear croc-free hot springs, crystal clear that was until the local Aboriginals started washing their jeans just upstream, bless ‘em! I’m not going to get into indigenous politics and injustices that they have suffered, but it sure is one hell of a mess now, with drugs, alcohol and abuse causing the destruction of many communities. I will just say that I did witness firsthand the effect of the Western world meeting, or should I say clashing with the Aboriginal lifestyle whilst working at Uluru (Ayres Rock) during my last trip here ten years ago. Too many tourists, throwing too much money at locals whose culture isn’t after all based on any form of currency as we know it. It seemed an unworkable blend back then, as they found themselves with a disproportionate amount of money to spend on Western junk food and grog - unfortunately things only seem to have got worse. I worked at the Aboriginal ‘Cultural Centre’ and ended up living on the supposedly alcohol free Aboriginal-only settlement right alongside the rock, walking to work through the bush and the empty beer cans…. The last thing that place seemed to be doing was maintaining traditions and healing the injustices… I don’t know the answer and listening to all the debate out here now, nor does anybody else. One thing though, throwing money at the younger Aboriginal generation - most still with an understandable chip on their shoulders, hasn’t got them anywhere.

Meanwhile back in the land of the carefree tourist we checked out the famous “Ghan” before leaving for Edith Falls about 20k’s from Katherine. The Ghan is a train that runs from Adelaide all the way to Darwin along tracks laid mainly by Afghans. Speaking of which, did you know that central Australia has more camels roaming around it than Saudi Arabia?? I tell you, you guys are going to owe us a split of your pub-quiz winnings when we get back! Anyway, they (the English I think) built it in the wrong place a few times and it was washed away a lot, but it eventually dawned on them that they were crossing flood plains and decided to moved it 100k’s east or something like that - sounds similar to a few housing schemes in the UK, except that they haven’t learnt yet.

At Edith Pools we didn’t need much encouragement to get us out of our 2.4litre Toyota Sweatbox and into the lake. First stop a big waterfall a relaxing 250m swim across the other side, that was until we saw a huge metal cage that dawned on us was a salty trap, as we swam back to shore. There weren’t many other people in the water and I don’t know if being eaten is covered by our holiday insurance, but we made it out alive. As we walked on to the Upper Pools, we took a different path and passed a sign stating that saltwater crocodiles had been seen in the water and to swim at your own risk…doh!

After all the excitement of our first swim, the Upper Pools were bliss, guaranteed croc-free, a great waterfall to swim to and sort of rapids section that whooshed you back to the calmer water as soon as you stopped battling the current. It was a winning combination of no entry fee, cool water in lieu of air conditioning and flume style entertainment that made it difficult to leave.

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