The flight north to Darwin was uneventful, and we even managed to get our shopping done that night. The next morning, we strolled around Darwin till midday, before catching the Greyhound Bus to Katherine. The one thing that struck me (other than the heat) was just how flat and featurless the terrain was out there.
Katherine was not really a nice spot. Within about 20 minutes of getting off the bus we were watching a confrontation among the locals. I was pleased to catch our shuttle bus and get settled into the Campground at Nitmiluk National Park. The camp area was pretty full, complete with swimming pool and bar.. Jahoo!
19 Jul 10
The day before we began the trail, I’d organised Kayak hire for us to paddle up the Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk’s main tourist attraction. The Katherine river has a series of navigable gorges, interspaced with small gravel or slick rock rapids. Tourists jump on one of the flotilla of motor vessel and tour upstream on sightseeing trips.
We jumped right in with the tourists, paddling our way upstream. The Gorges were spectacular, especially from water level and at our own pace. Apparently there were resident freshwater crocodiles present, but we didn’t see any. The saltwater crocs were actively trapped and removed from the system, but I still felt very uncomfortable swimming in the gorge. We made it up to the top of the 2nd Gorge for lunch and a swim before cruising back to our campground.
The start of the walk involves a 2 minute ferry ride across the Katherine River to the northern rockhole. Only 10 people are allowed to start walking each day, so we introduced ourselves to the group of 40-50 year olds who’d be sharing the trail with us.
And so we began the pattern that would repeat itself, with little variation for the next 5 days. Get up early, walk across the generally uneventful plains to the campgrounds by lunchtime or early afternoon. Go swimming. Sunbathe. Read. Swim again. Have afternoon snacks, swim some more. Explore up and down river. Dinner. Sunset. Bed.
Though the walking wasn’t particularly interesting, there were still some subtle and curious variations in the foliage. However, once the sun got higher, I had to agree with the assessment of one of person in the log book. “The track itself is H.D. B (Hot, dry and boring), but the campsites and swimming holes are sublime.”
Along the way, there were several areas of Jaowyn Aboriginal Rock Art, which made for interesting diversions from the HDB walking.
The campsites and the rivers were indeed brilliant. The water was quite tepid in most of the pools and we generally spent most of the afternoon in just swimmers and sunhats. Exploring downstream revealed huge pools, waterfalls, canyons, rock formations and little fishes. There was plenty of sunbathing, swimming and reading to be done, making for a really relaxing 5 days. It was kinda like a beach holiday, where you walk to a new beach for a few hours each day.
In the evenings, we’d join the other group for fun conversations over dinner. The nights were very mild and only once on the whole trip (before dawn one morning) did I reach for a thermal layer. We took one sleeping bag to use as a duvet. It would usually get pulled up after midnight when there was bit of a drop in the temperature, but you could easily get away with just water and food on this trip.
On our final day, we had multiple swims on the way down the banks of the Edith River to Lielyn, where we’d organised a shuttle back to Katherine with Dyson’s bus company. Our pick up was a little late and turned out to be an ‘Aussie shiela in a great big Ute’. It was a bit of a squeeze in the single cab for the 3 of us, but it was only a 30 minute ride back to town. On her recommendation, we got dropped off at ‘The Katherine Club’ for a couple of beers and some Air conditioning to while away the 4 hours before our bus departed.
Back in Darwin at 9.45pm, we showered, re-sorted our gear in time for a midnight airport shuttle and 2am departure. Back in NZ, we were both stuffed, but rather satisfied after a very different two weeks away.
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