Friday, well it wasn't a cold night at all, even tho' we are just down the road from Katherine, where we had an extremely cold night. About 6am we felt the chill and it was a very cool morning until about 10am. After that, it became a very hot day.
Last night about 9pm, two coaches roared in and a crowd of Year 11 teens from Warandite, Vic., piled out and set up camp. They sounded like the invading hoardes, and were very noisy until they went to bed, not late, and again when they awoke at 6am. They had apparently been on the road since 5am - we figure their departure must have been Alice Spings or Uluru. No sooner had they moved on, that sometime this afternoon, two coaches arrived from Wantirna, Vic., also full of teens, who are not too noisy (they haven't been cooped up in a bus all day), but are stretching the resources of the shower block a bit. This is our first encounter with school bus trips of this type, you do not get them in regular caravan parks of course. Needless to say the expected "dawn chorus" of birds did not eventuate, I think they had flown off to a quieter place. Both these groups of schoolies were well drilled at putting their tents up quickly and in neat rows (the first group in the dark) - we figure they've had plenty of practice since they left Melbourne.
We had the most fantastic day, doing a 4 hr boat cruise touring 3 of the 13 gorges here at Katherine. Each gorge is separated by a rapids at this time of the dry season, so you get out of one boat, walk over the rocks around the rapids, and get into another boat, for the next gorge. This works quite well. These gorges, which are so accessable to the general public, not needing a 4 wheel drive to get to, are spectacular, and the amount of water here is astonishing. To go past the 3rd gorge, you have to canoe or walk, or fly.
The second gorge was the most interesting of the three we saw, and given more time, we would try a full day canoeing, where you can do multiple gorges. The third gorge included a stop from which you could walk to a beautiful swimming hole, Lily Pond, fed by a very high "maiden's hair" type waterfall, which normally dries up in the dry season, but was working today, given the recent rains. Not too many people swam - they hadn't warmed up enough yet.
Coming back through the second gorge, the cruise guides Di and Jai tried something they hadn't tried before - it was a stop at Butterfly Gorge (normally only accessible by a 4 hour walk), named after the butterflies which inhabit it. It was a trial and error exercise, with nowhere obvious to pull up, and very steep banks to clamber up and down. Today's photo is taken from Butterfly Gorge. The people who had tackled the tough walk to Butterfly Gorge (for peace and solitude, one of them said), were none too pleased to see half a boatload of cruisers trampling their quiet turf, but we only stayed 15 minutes!
As everywhere in the Top End, the bird life is very interesting, but here the crocs were not evident at all. There is a particularly well decorated bower bird's nest in the campground here. Its owner seems quite unperturbed by the many passers-by.
The Nitmiluk National Park, jointly operated by NT National Parks and the traditional owners, the Jawoyn, is very well set up for tourism - they operate a commercial enterprise right out of the park's visitors' centre, although there are a few glitches in the operation. By our observations, the school groups are doing 2hr gorge cruises, which cover the first two gorges.
