Darwin to Katherine

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Well, we’re currently at Katherine again after being without reception for a few days. We’ve done all sorts since the last blog entry. The weather remains steamy, each day reaching 35 deg. The highlight has to be our helicopter flight over Kakadu National Park. We drove out from Darwin to the town of Jabaroo (approx. 250km) and managed to get a flight at 12.00 noon. It was very windy but the copter seemed quite stable considering. The pilot took us over and into many gorges as well as some scary dips as we came over ridges. We saw crocs sliding into the water, wild pigs and lots of birdlife in the 45 mins we were aloft.

We then took a drive into the park, where we saw some strange rock formations and boat crossings over the South Alligator River. Rose got a bit too close to the bank at one stage and was promptly warned by a nearby ranger to stay well away from the edge as the crocs were definitely watching her. We drove back to Darwin, arriving at 5.30pm.

We had previously spent another Sunday evening on Mindil Beach, watching yet another stunning sunset. Wednesday 21st was spent looking around Darwin, at the WWII museum. Interesting to find that 243 people were killed and 493 injured in the first bombing raid by the Japs? A total of 64 raids took place!!!

We left our campsite on Thursday and headed for Litchfield National Park. We stayed at a campsite near Batchelor, which is the main town of the park, famous fore the discovery of Uranium in the 50’s. The park has many swimming holes, Florence Falls, Wangi Falls amongst others. Rose convinced me to have a dip at Wangi Falls which had only just re opened the day before, due to the presence of a 3.5m saltwater croc. It took them seven weeks to catch it!!! We also had a shot at off roading, passing through a couple of creeks. The first one had a depth marker to help with the crossing but the second, on the track to Blythe Homestead didn’t, so we took a punt and found that the water was half way up the doors. Scary stuff when there are big signs at the entry point, warning of crocs!!! We survived, thank goodness.

We continue to meet such friendly characters along the way. In fact we felt quite sad leaving Darwin, where we had made friends with a couple from Ashmore, Tony and Sherilyn.

Yesterday, Sunday 25th, was spent at Douglas Hot Springs where we took a drive along the banks of the Douglas River. Lots of signs warning not to swim, due to crocs, but idiots continue to ignore them. There was an AA get together being held at the camp, but none were present for happy hour???

We arrived here at Katherine at 11.00am and have just got back to camp after re stocking our supplies, prior to heading west towards Kunanurra.

This will probably be our last blog entry for a while, possibly until we hit Broome on 14th August.

Miss you all

John & Rose

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Comments

[JohnRose]

Pommy Blood!
I love you too Heather Johnny