Day 20 Saturday.

The only place you can get wifi at The Banyan Tree is at the front ‘office’ so I wandered up there just before lunch to check emails and stuff. I was sitting at a table outside when Johnno walk past with another guest then suddenly stopped while a greyish 1 metre long snake wandered across the path. Johnno calmly followed it through a bush, found a lump of steel lying around and thumped the snake into oblivion. Then he carried on down the path. I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell Rhon until after we left the park.
Anyway we made our way to Wangi Falls which were very nice and Rhon managed a quick dip while I sipped on an iced coffee. Then a couple of other viewing spots, Tolmey Lookout and Buley Rockholes where Rhon enjoyed herself again while I took photos, before heading back for a cool drink. It does get stinking hot in the afternoon with high humidity and just doing a couple of short walks can knock the stuffing out and of you. Luckily this park as with most others has plenty of shade,and a late afternoon breeze usually cools things down nicely.

Day 19 Friday

Today we are headed for Litchfield Park and surrounds. We would have done Tjawallan Douglas Hot Springs but the road was 4WD only so we had to skip it. However we did stop in Emerald Springs for a take away coffee from a very non-descript service station. Looks deceive sometimes because inside the place was almost to Taj Mahal standards. Strange what some folk spend their earnings on.
There were a variety of camping grounds to choose from in Litchfield Park and it was challenging to pick from the nicely presented glossy promo cards. However it soon became evident that the marketing people knew nothing about the places they were advertising! We did pick what we thought was the most promising - The Banyan Tree Tourist Resort. As soon as we met the owner ‘Johnno’ and his offsider ‘Froggy’ we knew we had picked the right place. The ladies toilet door had an interesting self closing device,  using a large bottle full of water tied to a rope - worked a treat!
After setting up the van in the spot Froggy gave us, we went off to have a look at the nearby Wangi falls - we’ll we thought it was nearby until we saw a sign 55ks. We drove there anyway but decided to go back the next day and see a few other sights along the way.
So a nice early night.

Day 18 Thursday

Enjoyed being in Katherine; did everything there was to do and found it very interesting, if depressing at times to observe the indigenous community ‘living’ in a small but modern town.

Another leisurely day today so after a lazy breakfast we headed North again and stopped in at Edith Falls. A popular visitor spot with a camping ground. We had thought of staying there but were glad we changed our mind as there was not a lot of shade around.  I heard reports of 2 snakes in the water so did not swim out to the waterfall, despite it looking very inviting!

Then on to Pine Creek.  At dusk another large colony of bats flew past and roosted in nearby trees..    Pine Creek is a very old town created around 1850 since gold was discovered when digging in posts for the Overland Telegraph. Other minerals were also discovered and the town became quite prosperous. The museum and library were housed in the oldest standing building in town. They weren’t doing a lot of business – we were the third visitors in the past four days. There used to be over 1000 folk living there but the mines gradually closed and now there are only about 150. However it has got three very large pubs to make sure nobody goes thirsty. There is an indigenous community just out of town and about 30 kids go to the local school. Apparently usually only half of them actually go there. The whiteys all go to school in Katherine – 100 ks in the bus each way.
We stayed at The Lazy Lizard Park – I described it as ‘rustic’- the shower was actually a corrugated iron box!  The park had a large eating/drinking area and did good business with tourist bus loads. Unfortunately we had to do without any phone connection as the only available phone box was not in use (see photo).

Day 17 Wednesday

Guess what we did today? Let the photos of Nitmiluk Gorge tell the story. That’s Katherine Gorge to you whitefellas.

Day 16 Tuesday

Not a lot to report today. We just caught up on a few of the local attractions. Started at the local museum which was amazing - every square centimetre (square inch sounds so much better) was filled with memorabilia, photos, old newspapers and magazines, trinkets, etc etc. all kept in pristine condition.  Another building had been part of the original Overland Telegraph station with an original desk from 1892, and another housed the Gypsy Moth plane used by Clyde Fenton, NT’s first flying doctor.
Then we took a tour of Katherine’s School Of The Air which services 180 students in remote outback locations. A very interesting place.
We also visited Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Cultural Centre which was featuring a display centred mainly on the Wave Hill story. Then popped into another specialised indigenous gallery featuring both Desert and Arnhem Land painting styles.
Warmed up a bit in the arvo so back to the camp for a quite wine and relax.

Day 15 Monday

 An easy drive back to Katherine could have included a guided tour of the Couta Couta caves, but we decided to give it a miss after reading the info boards and saving some $. Pity because the guide was Indigenous which we are starting to learn is a bit unusual. We have learned that one of the reasons we don’t see many aborigines working as guides, or as waiters, or any other straightforward jobs is that we have to provide jobs for thousands of youngsters, generally female, who are here on 454 working visas. Who do we blame for that?

We hadn’t realised that Katherine is not open on a Monday, so we just relaxed until it was time to go to Marksie’s Stockman’s Camp Tucker night. Host Marksie has a big property out in the bush and has set up a large open air camp kitchen, and while we eat his ‘specially’ prepared bush foods, he talks about the history of the area, his background in setting up the food nights, and tells a few bush tales. A highlight of the night was Rhon winning a certificate for swinging the Billy three times without spilling a drop. There were only eight people on this night, but he caters regularly for 39 to 40 with local groups an ffrom overseas. He runs other specially themed nights as well. It was a great night with fabulous food - see menu below.

Marksie also mentors young aboriginal folk and gave us an insight into the aboriginal employment issue. He employed 100 youngsters in a mentoring program to provide an opportunity for them to become employable. Of the 100 over a six month period only 8 went the distance. In onother story he employed a young girl who worked a week, then didn’t turn up the next week without contacting home. Then she did come back to work and didn’t see anything wrong with being absent, nor did she understand why he would be annoyed. Marksie suggested that many indigenous youngsters have plenty of things they can do instead of work, plus they didn’t spend much time at school. Over 80 percent of indigenous kids do not attend school.
It’s a problem we have heard about whilst talking to several people, and the results are very evident in the parks and spaces around Katherine where there are always groups of aboriginals hanging around with nothing to do.  Unfortunately alcohol is a huge issue, leading to lots of alcohol related crime.  There were 8 murders of aboriginal women in Katherine last year.  I was approached by an aboriginal woman in a wheelchair in the street and she sold me a lovely painting she had done that morning. 

Day 14 Sunday

Well we woke in Katherine this morning and decided to head to Mataranka for an overnight stay at the thermal hot springs. After setting up the van, we headed into the Elsey National Park and looked up to see thousands of red Flying foxes (bats) in the tops of all the palms. It was a truly amazing sight and it was quite noisy. At dusk they all took off, apparently towards a large mango farm nearby. The thermal pools were beautiful and very relaxing floating on our noodles. We thought the pools would be too hot, but the temperature was just perfect. One of the ladies in the pool told me that earlier she had come across a snake eating a frog In the ladies toilets! Guess I will be hanging on for a while!! Tonight we were entertained by a woman in the open air bar who had a magnificent voice and it was a pleasure to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the balmy atmosphere.

Yep, Mataranka (famous for the biggest termite mound in the world and the location for the film We of the Never Never) 1000k from Alice Springs and 350 from Darwin. Basically in the middle of nowhere but with all the comforts of home. As you can see from the signage they only accept a classy sort of folk.

On the way down we noticed another change in the bush with a totally different shape of termite mound. These were not the tall pointed variety but much shorter and thicker with round lumps sticking out so that they looked like little Buddhas. The locals have apparently taken to dressing them up in whatever they are wearing at the time. Again there had been a lot of burning going on and it was interesting to notice that the termite mounds were not effected.

Back to Katherine tomorrow.