Well here it is Sunday night at Jabiru, 8.30pm and still 28.2C with forecast 20-32C.
Do not really like to stick it to those in Tassie, so must admit the 28.2 is a little high for our liking at this time of night. Poor old Sue has been having a love/hate relationship with mosquitos over the last 3 to 4 nights. So whilst most people can sit outside and pick up whatever breeze is on offer, Sue is confined to the van. Fortunately she very cleverly made flyscreen covers for both passenger and driver windows as well as a flyscreen curtain for the back, so she picks up a bit of air that way. We also now sleep (past 4 nights) with the driver and passenger windows open. What we have found is that both max and minimum temps have picked up around 6-8 degrees over the past week. It is not humid so 28-32 is ok by day, nights without breeze are not so good.
We have only travelled around 600k this week, but by hell we have done some walking and sightseeing! Katherine Gorge and Yellow Waters (Kakadu) boat cruises; billabong walks; wetlands walks, drylands walks, lookout climbs and rock scrabbling to view aboriginal painting.
Last week we were at Mataranka, home of hot pools (very nice 32C thank you). Watched barramundi feeding at the caravan park with ‘trained’ barra actually allowing the handler to pick them up out of the water. What better way to follow that up than Barra (wild not farmed) and chips for lunch!
Toddled on to Katherine for a couple of nights. Third biggest city in NT. Started to feel we had arrived in the true NT (“Not Today”) when we tried to get the indicator issue sorted with the van! The locals expressed the opinion that the town was ‘always overrun by tourists in July’ [as distinct from humming with visitors]. Thought we might enjoy a good counter lunch somewhere on our last day, didn’t find it – nor did a number of other tourists we kept meeting as we cruised the streets (on foot) looking for that meal!
Looked like the % of aboriginal population in Katherine might be quite high. How did we get to the state we are in with these people? Be embarrassed, or not depending on your point of view, of our treatment of asylum seekers. But by hell we should be appalled at what has become of the original inhabitants, they are far worse of than the asylum seekers. We in Tassie have little concept!
From Katherine we finally took wise council and headed in to Kakadu. Giving up on superlatives! I guess the thing to record is that we have found different kinds of beauty, splendour and spectacles from the Northern Flinders (South Australia); through Uluru and then the McDonnells; and now to here in Kakadu. And that is not forgetting the appeal of the ‘desert’ regions in between.
Kakudu offers, by aboriginal reckoning, six different regions; from the [relatively] dry and elevated south, through various wetland areas and finally the coastal fringes. We have glimpsed them all, seen wildlife and flora aplenty and seen some amazing aboriginal sites and rock paintings.
Tomorrow? Well that’s another day – the Ranger mine site certainly but then once we rejoin the Stuart Highway do we turn north for Darwin or south to start our run for the West? Find out next week!
Early Monday morning postscript! Found the lost external modem so in business for photos. Photos, photos – gets harder each week! Also found that we had left someone off our contact list when they asked why that had not heard from us. Reviewed the list and added another one or two who I thought were already on the list. So if this arrives unexpectedly – welcome to our mailing list
