Friday to Sunday - Katherine & Nitmiluk National Park

We set off for Katherine on the Friday morning as we needed some supplies, an internet cafe and we wanted to book a boat trip for the Saturday. We got there to find out that it was a public holiday in Katherine (just Katherine) and that there was a rodeo on the Saturday and the Katherine Show, so it was pretty busy. The internet cafe mentioned in the Lonely Planet was closed, as was the information centre (for lunch) and we noticed a very large number of camper vans and other associated tourists heading towards Katherine and as we didn't know how large or small the campground was we joined the flow.
We got a nice spot with shade and some grass and went off to book the boat trip, having decided that a full day trip which got you to the 5th gorge with about 5kms of walking between gorges, would be better than hiring a canoe and trying to port it over the rocks between the first and second gorges in the heat.

We had a trully excellent day, and the scenery was magnificent. I even felt a bit better about my level of (or lack of) fitness when a German woman about 10 years younger than me opted to stay at the third gorge because she thought the walking was too hard. She reckoned no-one had warned her but they certainly warned Frank and I and everyone else we spoke to. And the guide warned people before we set off on the first real walk. She missed some very impressive scenery. The way the river can move around those huge boulders is unbelieveable, and the way thre trees grow also gives you an idea of the force of the water.

There are notices along the sandy banks in some stretches warning campers not to land there for the night as it's a freshwater crocogile nesting ground. Apparrently the crocs don't like to share. I wish they had been at some of our campsites.

Unfortunately when we got back to camp that night we discovered we had very close neighbours - I think invading other people's personal space just isn't an issue for some people. I was going to say that the French were the worst but then I remembered the nine Victorian guys and the Australian family with 4 children who camped almost on our tent. She was funny - she came right up to our tent early in the morning and took away our empty beer bottles when we were still in bed. I wish I had thought about it more at the time I could have asked her if she had thrown them in the rubbish, as we were collecting them to put in recycle bins on the rare occassions that we found them.

Cute red dragonfly.