Blogs from Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Not all bus trips are boring. Our trip from Alice Spring to Katherine was a total of 17 hours, including a 1 1/2 hour stop at 4:30 in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, a small town called Tenant Creek. We have been very surprised at the Aboriginee situation here, including this place. Many Aboriginee children hang out where the Greyhound bus stopped (really, at this time of night?), supposedly for the purpose of sneaking onto the bus to steal things. Our bus driver keeps close guard at the door and locks up tight when everyone is off, quite sad actually. We will arrive in Katherine at noon and pick up a rental car. There is no other transportation to get to Katherine Gorge. Hopefully Ferdy is awake enough to drive on ... read more

Geo: -14.4657, 132.264We arrived fairly early 11 am into Katherine Big4 Caravan Park. Lovely park being 40 acres of lawned areas. The day is hot again, about 39c and fairly humid. After setting up camp we had to shop and re-stock the fridge again. Jen & Nat had a swim in the pool. David & I pottered around the van and it was our turn to cook tea. Chow Mein yum. Saturday we started at the information centre to book a tour for Sunday of the 3 gorges and find out some info on Kakadu as rumour has it parts of the park are still closed due to crocs. That seemed to take ages. We went to the local flea market and didn't find anything to buy. Onto the Katherine museum where we spent a couple ... read more

Geo: -14.4657, 132.264Another classic day at the top end. We are big fans of Kakadu. Saw it yesterday from the air and today we joined a cruise of the Alligator River to get up close and personal with the wetlands before heading off to Katherine. Not a bad pair of book ends to celebrate Mother's Day.It was a 7.45 muster at the bus and agedMac had trouble with the time again and we only just made it by the skin of our teeth. But make it we did and our 17 fellow travellers were seated and ready to go for our first stop at Nourlangie Rock for a look at the second collection of Aboriginal art in the rock gallery. There are only three viewing sites open to the public in Kakadu and we have visited ... read more

Hi Folks, on the road again, back down the Stuart Highway, turned east onto the Arnhem Highway, we were pleasantly surprised at the condition of the road, our first stop was the Window to the Wetlands Information Centre, expecting just the normal Tourist Information Centre, it had the most wonderful inter active multi-media exhibition of wetland habitat housed in a spectacular building, venturing upstairs, to a small theatrette and magnificent three sided balcony overlooking the Mary River flood plain, a spectacular vista. Expecting to be there for 10 or so minutes, we departed about 90 minutes later. Driving over the Mary River bridge and talking about crocodiles, I looked down to the water and notice a log, Doug said "that's a crocodile", seconds later my log moved very quickly, the first wild crocodile on this trip. ... read more

Sunday 26thJuly Up early to make up for lost time. I still can't get the grill to work. We drive a few minutes up the road and stop at the Mamukala wetlands. It's another large bilabong covered by lillies with dozens of birds feeding. It's a great area for bird watching. Our next stop is about 40 mins away at Ubir to see Aboriginal rock paintings. Many of them are quite vivid in colour, whilst many more have faded. Still they are thought to be 5,000 years old! We then climb to a lookout point which gives great views over a lot of Kakadu NP and also into Arnhem Land which is Aborginal Land and can't be accessed without special permission. On the way back to the main road we stop at a boat ramp on ... read more