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Published: September 22nd 2014
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Following on from our organised tour of the Kimberley, we decided to make a quick visit of the Top End of NT, this time travelling independently. We flew from Broome to Darwin, and after an overnight stay near the airport took off in a hire car down the Stuart Highway towards Katherine. We detoured on the way via the Litchfield National Park, taking in each of the Florence Falls, Tolmer Falls, and the popular picnic spot of the Wangi Falls. While each of these sights was in its own way quite picturesque, we questioned whether they warranted the extra 160 or so kms of travel off the road to Katherine. I guess to some degree our views were influenced by the fact that we had just spent a fortnight in similar terrain in the Kimberley, it was a really hot day, and my mobility was considerably limited by an injury I sustained a week earlier clambering over rocks at Emma Gorge, later diagnosed as a torn cartilage in my knee.
From there it was just a hard drive down to Katherine. and while it was a fairly uninteresting 300km journey, being able to sit on 130kph most of the way
made it pass pretty quickly. The main excitement for the trip was the occasional passing of a road train, which are now allowed to carry up to 4 trailers each, so you need a good forward vision (or overtaking lane) to make your move. As it turned out, we feel that Katherine was well worth the trip, not for the town itself, but for the Nitmiluk National Park, which comprises the Katherine Gorge plus other attractions. We took the Gorge boat cruise, which enabled us to see the first 2 of the 13 immense gorges that stretch for kilometres, each one being at a different level and thus requiring a change of boat. I think the thing that was most impressive was the sheer cliffs rising high on either side of the gorge, which led to a variety of flora and bird life, as well as the now mandatory fresh-water crocs. It is obvious from the patterns on the cliff faces how high the water can rise to in the wet season, which would make this a totally different attraction at that time.
On our return to Darwin, again at high speed, we shouted ourselves to what we thought
would be a final night of 5 star luxury at Mantra on the Esplanade. On being shown into our relatively expensive room, to find two single beds and no balcony, I revisited reception to voice my displeasure at the poor value for our money. After some haggling, we were upgraded at no extra cost to a three bed, three bath apartment, each room with a king size bed, and with a full wrap-around balcony. After all these years as a commodity trader, it's nice to have my negotiating skills finally give us some benefit! The irony was that I realised on the Sunday morning that I had screwed up our flight home, thinking we were flying home on the Sunday afternoon instead of the Monday as booked, meaning we either had to change flights or stay an extra night. Our first inclination was the former, but after placing a call to Qantas to see if we could change flights and being offered an outrageous $1,100 charge changeover (so much for being a lifetime Gold Member at Qantas - no wonder they have no customer loyalty these days), we opted instead to stay another night, and were pleasantly surprised to be
able to keep the apartment an extra night at no surcharge above our original daily charge. Darwin, as expected, was pretty laid back and enjoyable, and we can certainly recommend a couple of the outdoor restaurants overlooking Cullen Bay.
Our next venture in a month's time is to the US to visit family, and introduce ourselves to our new grand-daughter, so there will be no further blogs at that time.
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