Katherine

Starting off canoeing on Katherine Gorge, looking confident

Starting off at 8am was a beautiful time of day

Made it to the end of the first gorge!

Almost finished.... getting tired now

We’ve had a nice few days in Katherine staying with Megan and Jamal – it was especially nice staying in a family home for a change! We arrived at their place and had lunch with Jamal on Tuesday, then spent the afternoon copying CDs at the local library while Nick cleaned the car within an inch of its life. We both can’t recognise the car now it looks so different, as it hasn’t been this clean (on the outside) since we bought it, just looks wrong almost! If it didn’t have the pod on the roof we’d have trouble finding it in a car park. Tuesday night we went along to a school musical night which featured Sammi, one of Megan and Jamal’s sons, which was pretty fun, the acts ranged from the pre-schoolers singing Never Smile At A Crocodile up to 5^th and 6^th graders putting on little acts about reading (kids’ book week), one of them starring Sammi doing a reading.

Conor and Daniel were in heaven getting to play with other kids again, with big boy toys and watch tv, so wished we could have stayed longer. This morning we got up early and went canoeing on Katherine Gorge which was just beautiful. We tried to book canoes for the whole day, but could only get them for the morning session, which was actually enough in the end – after not swimming for 4 ½ months my arms and shoulders aren’t up to it! It meant that we couldn’t go further than the first gorge, but it’s the longest and was lovely anyway. It was actually very peaceful just paddling along, nice and quiet – even the couple of tourist cruise boats that went past didn’t bother us, and we just cruised up to the end, hopped out, looked at some rock art and peered into the second gorge, before heading back again. I’m sure I saw an archer fish spitting water out trying to catch an insect along the way, which was pretty cool. Then it was back to Megan and Jamal’s to pack up, take in our two loads of washing they kindly let us do, and head off into the sunset, down south. We’ve made it to Daly Waters just as it was getting dark, in time to have dinner at the pub, full strength beer (!) and watch the free show, which we all enjoyed (comedy, poetry and songs). Tomorrow it’s up early again and off on the Carpentaria Highway, to Limmen NP.