Canoe-tanic

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Day 150 - Katherine

We’re off to Nitmiluk National Park (Katherine Gorge) today so wanted to get up at a reasonable time to make the most of whatever coolness was available in the morning. Our intention was to spend the day canoeing with possibly a walk at the end of the day time permitting.

The journey out to the gorge takes about 30 minutes but we still made it just before 8am to join the queue of like minded people! Once you’ve got your tickets you then take the short walk down to collect your canoe, paddles and life jackets. We listen to a short instruction / safety briefing and then we’re off on our own to face the waterway.

The transition from land to canoe is surprisingly easy, perhaps some canoeing tactics are beginning to sink in!

Safely installed in our double canoe we head off along the right hand side as instructed, keeping out of the way of the tour boats when they come past. From our new floating position we can see the tracks of a freshwater (we hope) crocodile going up and over one of the beaches. Very exciting, hopefully we’ll see the real deal a bit further along!

Our trip today will see us take on only 3 of the 9 gorges within the National Park. These are the most accessible to people not wishing to take things too seriously and who are not on an overnight camping trip! There is a certain amount of portage between most of the gorges and the level of difficulty seems to range from 15 minutes up to 40 minutes hard work! Luckily for us there is no portage to be had at the end of the first gorge, all we have to do here is pick up our gear and walk the pathway to gorge number two and collect a new canoe!

This time the canoes are green and when I initially arrive the water is so still there is a mirror like reflection and the scenery is stunning. Five minutes later a tour boat went out and around ten others arrived to swap canoes so it did change a bit but still beautiful.

We paddled our way through the second gorge all the while looking out for water monitors, turtles, bats, fish, wallabies and of course those illusive freshwater crocs! Despite there being quite a few other people canoeing on the waterway we managed to forge ahead and by the end of the second gorge we were out in front by a comfortable km. This afforded us peace and tranquillity plus we were able to complete the portage of our canoe in total seclusion so that if we made a mess of it only we would know!

As it was we devised a plan where Darryl would tow the canoe through the rocks and the shallow water whilst I carried our gear up the steps and then brought it out to him when he’d made it through. It worked well and we were soon on our way again. By now we had perfected our stroke system except for the occasional banging of paddles, so the paddling time through gorge three was minimal and we came to the portage area to get into the fourth gorge. We could immediately see that it would take more effort than we were prepared to give in order to get the canoe across the enormous rocks we were now faced with!

So that was that, we turned the canoe around and paddled back to a small beach we had spotted which had the steps leading to the Lilly Pond walk. We thought it was about time for food so we had ourselves a bit of lunch and then swam in the water to cool off. Beautiful! The walk over to Lily Pond was good and quite short. There wasn’t a huge amount of water in the pond and there weren’t any lilies but it was a nice change of scenery and gave us a good view of the gorge from higher up.

The rest of the afternoon was lost in a haze of swimming and paddling around. On the way back through the second gorge we watched in horror as several crows pecked a small bat to death. It wasn’t a nice sight at all and not one of Mother Nature’s best moments although we’re sure the crows would not agree.

It was just after this that the afternoon took a bit of a different turn. We happened upon three young people all paddling in single canoes and as we went in to a cave which houses the nests of Fairy Martins we smelt something in the air which was definitely out of place and then caught sight of a bottle of red wine in one of their canoes. The smell of dope in the air was pretty strong, as was their behaviour which from this point onwards turned into loud raucous laughing and singing, in French, at the top of their voices! We thought when they started to clamber on top of the moored tour boats to be able to get on to the higher rocks then leaping into the water that things couldn’t get too much more extreme but their piece de resistance was yet to come!

They stopped just shy of the section where you hand your canoes back in so they could climb higher up the rocks and leap into the gorge water below. The two lads stood on the rocks while the girl lay in her single canoe, all the while yelling and shouting and then leap down to the watching girl. They swam over to her and with one lad scrambling onto each end of her canoe there was only ever going to be one outcome! Down it went like a small version of the titanic and there was little or no hope of it being floated to the surface any time soon! There was nothing left for the one lad to do but swim back with everything but the canoe. There was momentarily no staff on the bottom platform when he swam back in so we suspect that nobody realised a canoe had been ‘lost’ that afternoon but we laughed out loud when he was ultra polite to the young lady in the hut where you reclaim your deposit for the return of the equipment! She was none the wiser and returned his car keys which he’d left as the deposit! He was lucky!

We had a look through the visitor centre which explains the history of the National Park and gives a good over view of the tough times that people endured living in the local area. It’s another very good centre, well laid out although not as interactive as some of the ones we’ve been too.

We didn’t bring the canoe back until 4.20 in the afternoon so there was no time left to do any walks, only time to visit Woolworths and stock up for the next week or so on everything except fruit, veg and honey because we cross the border into Western Australia very soon and there are strict laws in place to ensure WA stays disease free.

Back at camp we got a bit of a surprise, the hose pipe that we bought only yesterday to replace the one we think was half-inched (pinched) has exploded! Where the pipe has been out all day the water must have literally boiled inside it and has melted the plastic and punctured holes through it! Somebody must have seen that it was now acting more like a sprinkler than a hose and turned the supply tap off!! It was too late to go back to the shop with it now so we’ll see if there’s time to do that in the morning, if indeed we can stand the embarrassment!

All that was left for us to do tonight was cook dinner and as we were having Fahitas we thought we’d do it at the camp kitchen BBQ. It was quite busy over there and we were soon chatting to Jane and Dan who are on their way to Darwin looking for some work. They’ve had so many dramas with the camper van they bought in Sydney and unfortunately it’s eating up all their hard earned cash what with one thing and another. We talk a lot about being able to free camp here in Australia, it really is fantastic that there are so many areas with good facilities that you can stay in for nothing. We’re going to investigate if it’s at all possible in the UK when we get home, there must be somewhere!

Jane and Dan are also blogging using their own website to record their world tour and although it’s a little bit behind (!) when it’s all caught up it will be a very good read! Great to meet you guys and when we’re home we’ll all have a beer at Pod!

We bid them a safe trip and wander back to our caravan. A quick check on the internet brings us some very exciting news, good friends and fellow drag racers MadR’s have got their beautiful slingshot into the 7’s! This is HUGE news as not only did self proclaimed ‘Old Git’ Alec run a 7.81 but ‘Young Gun’ son Tom followed it a with a 7.61 which is just brilliant! It’s quite probable that they are now the quickest methanol powered slingshot in Europe! Wow! Well done guys and also congratulations to Tom & Sid on their recent engagement! Excellent news all round.

And so another day ends out here in Australia, it’s still very warm as we head to bed but the cooling fan is on full blast so will hopefully help us get some sleep.

Dar and Sar

Canoeing activity = 14.6 km

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Comments

[Kangaroojack]

A Murder of Crows
Great picture of the crows, (actually some great pictures all in) nature is amazing but it does have its cruel points. Take Care guys! Love KangarooJackxx