Katherine the semi-great

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The aircon in the coach to Katherine was faulty, so I was sweltering through most of the journey. I bade a wistful farewell to Eri-san, Manami-san, and Chie-san when we arrived, as unfortunately they were going straight through to Darwin. Travelling on my own versus with 3 women - hmm, tough one.

I'd unerringly picked a hostel that had clearly closed down since my guidebook was researched, but there were a couple of others to choose from. This seems to be another workers' paradise, as I was given literally the last remaining bed in a 10 bed dorm. It has an ensuite bathroom, which is ludicrous for a dorm that size, and there's the full age range from 3 50-something ladies down to a 16 year old guy who frankly should be doing homework somewhere rather than getting drunk in hostels.

Katherine itself isn't much to write home about, and in the evening it was crawling with drunken Aborigines. I'm now in Northern Territory, which has the highest concentration of Aborigines of all the Australian states, but unfortunately it doesn't look as though their lot here is any better than elsewhere. (To be precise, NT isn't a proper state, being administered from Canberra by the federal government.)

I was up ludicrously early the next morning, filled with energy disproportionate to my recent lack of sleep. My main reason for being in Katherine was to see the nearby Katherine Gorge, which my guidebook and fellow travellers had agreed was well worth a look.

The gorge is part of Nitmiluk National Park, and I caught a shuttle bus to take me the 30km there. Unlike Karijini, the gorge (actually a series of 13 gorges) is readily accessible, and is criss-crossed with walks ranging from an hour in duration to several days.

I chose the Windolf trail as my warm-up, as it was rated Medium with an estimated completion time of 3.5 hours. The trail went up and down and was for large parts just loose stone, which required concentration as well as energy. It also went across the escarpment, which is exposed to the sun and apparently 10 degrees hotter than at the bottom of the gorge. Things got off to a good start, with me spotting a wallaby from 50 yards with the eagle-eyed precision of a big game hunter. Unfortunately that early promise didn't pan out, as I didn't see another decent-sized animal for the rest of the day.

The Windolf trail made its first stop at Pat's Lookout, providing a great view down the gorge with assorted canoeists paddling around. From there, I clambered onto the South Rockfall, a downhill rocky descent that moved firmly into the Hard rather than Medium category. A couple of hundred yards from the bottom was a beach by the river, where I rested to have a snack.

After climbing back up to the rim, I set off in search of the Butterfly Gorge walk. Within minutes, I bumped into Sean and Laurent from the Bungle Bungles trip, who were doing the Windolf trail before heading for Darwin. Like with everywhere else since I arrived on the west coast, you won't meet someone once if you can meet them twice.

The Butterfly Gorge walk was mainly bad footing but nothing worse, making a mockery of its Hard rating, and most of it was in shade. I saw a few butterflies, but not the Birds-like swarms that I was expecting. The gorge came out at the main Katherine Gorge, where there was a glut of middle-aged people in swimsuits having a dip. I believe there are freshwater crocodiles in the gorge, but they rarely go for humans.

I'd already finished my drinking water by this point and my clothes were drenched with sweat - back at the Visitor Centre (after about 5 hours of almost constant walking) I downed 2 bottles of water and one of Pepsi Max with ease. With the shuttle not due until late afternoon, I sat watching the view for a couple of hours, relaxing and drying out. Though I enjoyed my wanderings here, as gorges go, Katherine Gorge was not in the same class as those in Karijini. Not that there's an absolute scale for such things, but if you're short of time you should definitely see Karijini over Katherine.

Back at the hostel, I had to move rooms and seem to have ended up in a dorm where the other residents drink beer from 6PM. A number of them were also twirling fire batons in the hostel car-park, which I'm assuming must be in preparation for the Katherine Fair tomorrow. I had a plan to eat out at one of the town's many fine dining establishments, but this was scuppered by them all quoting me enormous waiting times, so Subway (Subway!!) ended up getting my custom.

I heard that it had reached over 36C (temperature, not average bra size) in the UK recently, making it hotter there than here. I'm hoping that, one day, aircon becomes as common in the UK as it does in anywhere else in the world that reaches such temperatures.

For a dorm mainly containing workers, the inhabitants were astonishingly inept at locating and turning off their cellphones when their (loud) alarms went off the following morning. While eating my breakfast, a Swiss guy came up and asked if I was interested in going canoeing in the gorge - I declined, saying I was leaving today and wanted to see the Katherine Fair instead, at which point we ended up chatting and hung out for the rest of the day. His name's Roman, and he's another 30-something guy taking a career break.

The fair was a couple of kilometres away, and was bigger than the Kununurra equivalent. There were the usual funfair rides, cattle pens, fruit and veg competitions, etc, including an interesting riding event in which the contestants had to steer a runaway calf around various poles simply by riding their horse on the appropriate side of it to force it to turn left/right. We watched the official opening ceremony from the welcome shade of the grandstand - this consisted of a series of Katherine notables giving tedious speeches before introducing the parade. The parade was a motley collection of emergency service vehicles, souped-up Holden pick-ups, lawnmowers (of course), and prize-winning cattle.

My bus to Darwin left in the late afternoon, and while waiting at the stop I bumped into 2 people from the Bungle Bungles trip, 1 that I'd last seen in Coral Bay, and 2 that I'd last seen in Kununurra. I should no longer be surprised by such meetings.

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Photos

Kangaroo at Katherine Gorge
Or maybe a wallaby

Katherine Gorge
Beached canoes