August 7th saw us say goodbye to the west and enter the Top End. It had been a fantastic tour through some of the most spectacular parts of Western Australia, but now some true gems of the Northern Territory were awaiting.
Otherwise known as Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk is a beautiful National Park surrounded by large gorges and a croc infested river. After getting much needed food supplies in town, we headed for the campground which was situated in the National Park and a really beautiful setting. The town of Katherine was not the most pleasant of places. There were many indigenous people, mainly women on the street, shouting and quite drunk. It was very upsetting to see this amazing culture in such despair. Many of these people have been rejected from their own communities outside of town for drinking and were basically homeless, living in the grasses around Katherine. A very sad state of affairs, one which we were to learn much more about in weeks to come.
The campground was really quite nice, surrounded by green grass, a restaurant and small wallabies hopping around the caravans. We settled in, did some washing in the free machines and swam on our first day. The kids once again were waiting for our friends from Broome to arrive the following day.
The next day was spent wandering around town visiting a couple of local galleries as well as a much needed excursion to the Katherine Hot Springs. At about 32 degrees, it was welcome relief from the 37 degree temperatures Katherine was experiencing. The kids had fun jumping from a swinging rope into the warm water with Josh. Trace wasn’t so daring (as usual).
We booked into the 3 gorge cruise which was 4 hours but sounded great. We were also told of an interesting and fun cultural experience for the kids called Top Didj which we were waiting for the other family to arrive so we could all go together. Finally they arrived and the kids were happy to have some friends to play with again. Olivia and Sean had promised to repay us a dinner that we had made for them so luckily for us we had fantastic rice paper rolls for dinner that night. Of course the kids absolutely loved them.
Top Didj was a cultural experience run by a local couple who employed an indigenous man to teach people about his culture. Manoel was a charismatic, humorous and interesting man who was more than keen to educate us about some life skills like fire lighting and hunting. Josh maintaining that it took him the shortest amount of time to obtain smoke from his stick rubbing. Manoel was also an established artist in his own right and showed us not only the correct ways to paint his type of artwork called Rark, but also the techniques used. We had a fun experience and again one which the kids will remember for a while.
On our last day in Katherine we managed to book onto the 3 gorge cruise which left in the early morning. The cruise took 4 hours to meander through the 3 different waterways. The kids were horrified that there were numerous people smoking on and off the boat and made it quite clear their disgust. Unfortunately our guide was not Indigenous, in fact he was as Aussie as they come, with some of his jokes flying straight over most people’s heads. It was still a beautiful cruise and we were quickly on our way to Adelaide River on our return.
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