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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Alice Springs to Nitmiluk

Hi All,

We finally set off at 9 am on Sunday morning, and promptly sat and watched the Transport Hall of Fame parade stream out of a side street in front of us and so we sat back and watched for about 20 minutes. We hadn't left Alice Springs and already we were treated to something new (an Alice Springs traffic jam!).
We stoppded off a few times before Tennant Creek, then went to the Dam just north of Tennant. We then set off for Lake Woods, our first night destination, 750 kms north, just outside of Elliot. The birdlife was pretty good there with lots of Kites, Shags, Pelicans to keep us amused and entertained. The local Principal had decided our spot was a good place to launch a canoe or two with 30 or so school kids, so we decided to get out of there as quickly as we could when we heard we were about to be invaded.
Day 2 was spent slowly driving to Mataranka and we found a lovely camp site Julikara and although the signs said no salt-water crocs, we decided that apart from a very quick in and out experience by a very brave Annie, we might wait until the hot springs.
Our campsite was one of only half a dozen tennanted sites so we had lots of room. We started to understand our Jayco a bit better and we had the take down finished in half an hour, the kids getting involved with "jobs".
We left julikara and headed to Elseys Cemetery which is dedicated to the characters in the book "We of the Never Never" Then off to Mataranka Station Hot Springs and all of us managed to get into the water, including Banjo with his fibreglass cast held high. A lovely relaxing swim, then a spot of lunch in the dirt next to the car. There is also a replica of the Homestead from the book here so we could see what matrials were used in the construction of a homestead over 100 years ago.
Next into Katherine for a spot of shopping and an attempt to get Banjo's cast off. The hospital wanted to make him wait for 4 hours so the offer ws declined. We headed out to Nitmiluk, Katherine Gorge, and settled in for a few days. Annie decided she could easily get Banjo's cast off so off it came last night (Tuesday 31st August, 4 weeks to the day since he broke his forearm).
Today we awoke with high expectations of continuing on our merry life with lots of activities but sometimes life doesn't go to plan, and Annie and I decided a rest day was needed. So we had a lazy day swimming in the pool at the camping ground, a gentle walk down to the Katherine River, and basically spent much of the day trying to recuperate some of the energy from packing the house and setting off into the unknown of Jayco camping world.
Tomorrow we are intending to take a 3 hour cruise up the river, with 3 different Gorges and a few different boats. I am hoping for still water to be the order of the day.
We have seen lots of birds, all documented, and we already have some reat moments captured on both still and movie cameras. These will be added separately.
Until the next post ....

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