Katherine Gorge

Today I got up early, not by my own decision you see. The animals around here are LOUD! Holy cow, I tried to sleep in my tent but didn’t get much sleep at all. Something in the middle of the night was screaming/calling whatever the heck it was doing about 50 feet from my tent. There wasn’t anyone else tenting around me, and the only other people in the park were in motorhomes. Anyhoo, I rolled out of bed around 6am to pack up camp. As soon as I stepped out, cue flies!!! Hahaha I can’t win I tell ya!

After I got all packed up, I headed out to Katherine Gorge to do some walking. I found a really nice Ranger (whose name I unfortunately didn’t get) who showed me the best walk to go on for the best views and mentioned a swimming hole to check out (no crocs there, wahoo!). 7:30am and off I went with my camera in hand and low and behold a wallaby just chillen out for me to get pics of. These little guys are not that skittish, I mean if you approach them they will hop a few feet away from you but they don’t run which is great for photo ops. I was also able to spot some pretty green parrots in the trees; they are so hard to spot since they blend in so well. You have to catch them in the air in order to see them land and grab a picture of two if you are lucky. When I thought I was just getting lucky, I spotted the lovely loud Cockatoo! There were 2 of them, but one wanted no part of having his picture taken, the other one hung around for a bit for me which was nice because as often as I hear them, they don’t usually come close enough for me to snag some good pics.

So now the trek really beings. I head off down the grass path to where the gravel path starts. You follow this along Katherine River for a bit till you come to a set of stairs. A set is a major understatement, as this bad boy went up and up and up between manmade stairs and stones to walk up. Once I made it to the top (huffing and puffing like usual) the view was amazing. The river is really brown which I believe is from all of the sediment and color of the dirt around here. If it was blue, ooooooh eeee what an amazing stunning sight that would be. Anyway, this was just a start to the beautiful views that I was going to encounter. After this the ranger told me to follow the 4wd track up to their water treatment center and around to the next part that would bring me to Pat’s Lookout (I can’t get away from it, which is a story for another day) and from there, there is a short walk to the upper pools where I could swim. This is just what I would need after the walk, it was around 90°F when I started my day and it was only going to get hotter and there was no relief from the sun.

Off I start along this path to Pat’s lookout, it was fairly easy to start, but soon got really rocky with bigger rocks that you had to navigate around and watch where you were going at all times otherwise a rolled ankle or worse would happen. I was lucky enough to have brought my camelback with me (for those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a bladder you fill up with water, wear in a backpack and has a hose/straw for you to drink from). It was humid, hot, sticky and I was sweating like a nun in the red light district hahaha. I was keeping a good pace and reached the look out just under 2 hours into my hike. The view from here was stunning. The river winds its way through the gorge, snaking around bends and creating small rapids here and there, and when the water is semi low like it was today, it has beaches where big ole crocs can hang out and sun themselves. I wasn’t lucky enough to see any today but I will somewhere along this trip. The sky was so blue today; it was a perfect backdrop to the red rocky cliffs that stood in front of it. I found some shade along the cliff side where I was, far enough away to not fall over the side but still enjoy the view, take some pictures and get a breeze here and there. Moments like the one I had today are only ruined by the dam flies that kept pestering me. I finally got a picture of them all over my bag to show people how bad they were, because unless you have been here, you are most likely calling me a wimp by now.

After this minor break I decided to go check out the swimming hold the ranger had told me about. The sign said “stay away fools!” hahah nah just kidding, it said that it was .5km to the hole and I figured that was easy enough. I need to stop thinking that things around here are easy! This park of the hike was the worst out of the whole 4 hours I was gone! Big boulders to crawl over and around, and tons of stairs to go down. I reached where I thought I was at the swimming hole as there was tons of water and it was fairly deep. I took off my socks and shoes and stuck my legs into the water. It felt so good, I was tempted to hop in, I looked up and there was another arrow pointing me to head farther into the walk. WHAT??!! This isn’t the pool? It is farther in THAT direction??? Oh lord help me. I sat there for a while contemplating if I should keep going or not. I decided to keep going with the idea in my head that it would be worth it and I am not going to be coming back here again ever (to this part of Oz at least) so to just do it. So I had to cross over part of the stream that was flowing, balancing over rocks praying I don’t take a digger and end up with wet feet or worse. I then came to another set of friggan stairs, again I contemplated continuing on. I said, shit it can’t be that far, it said .5km keep going, you can hear the water. So I did, in this part of the trek, I slid down a few gigantic rocks, almost walked smack into not 1 but 2 huge spider webs with spiders in them (shudder, gag, catch my breath), around dead trees and up over a small embankment to the beautiful watering hole. It was surrounded by big tall cliff faces and to the far right was a waterfall that came down from where I had stopped the 1st time. The water was so clear and I wanted more than anything to jump in because I was so over heated and soaked from sweating. I just couldn’t do it, not alone. At this point I wished that someone was with me so I could go in. The fear of crocs or other friggan creepy things in this stopped me dead in my tracks. Now I know full well no crocs would make it up here to this pool. It is located too far up and there are waterfalls and other obstacles they can’t content with so I would have been fine, but nope it wasn’t happening. So I took a few pics, sighed, turned around and started the horrid climb back up to the start of this track. Since I knew where the damn spiders were I was able to dodge them a lot easier this time, thank goodness but I was having a hard time going back.

It was getting hotter and hotter as the time went on and I felt as though no amount of water was helping me because it was all just coming out of my pores. I got back to the main track and headed back in the direction of the water station to fill up again, as I knew I would run out before then. If anyone had been with me they might of thought I was going to keel over, because that is how I felt. I was sweating, over heated, hot, hungry for a big meal and the damn flies were brutal. I was proud of myself for not having any issues with the flies not ending up in my nose or mouth! Ha! Well wouldn’t you know that probably 30 min later, one flew up my nose….omg that feeling is horrid, snot rocket ahoy! And then give or take 10 min another one ended up in my mouth choking me. These bastards, I can’t wait to find a damn head net so I don’t have to deal with them anymore. Everywhere I had asked, they were all sold out. Ok back to the trek…..I was slow as molasses in winter time by now. I could barely pick my feet up to walk, I kept closing my eyes and walking on the flat path, opening them up just enough to make sure I wasn’t going to walk into something and was still going in the right direction. I ran out of my water about 20 min away from the water tank, thank goodness I was close. I reached it, filled up and sat down for a few minutes in some minor shade to regroup myself. Feeling better, I got back on track (literally and figuratively) a headed back towards the start. The ranger had told me to not go the way I had come but to take a left and do the easier way back. Hell ya that is what I was going to do damit, I was pooped! It was all downhill from here…till I got to the road. I thought, hummmm if I follow the road it brings me to my car, I know that, but the signs say to stay on the path and I will bring me back there as well. So I stayed on the path….damit! Go with your gut! I ended up about 10 min from my stupid car, so I had to walk farther to get back. Once I reached the parking lot my car glowed like it had a halo around it and the choirs were singing. AC! AC! AC! Hahaha that and getting off my feet was all I could think of.

It was just before 11:30 and my step count was 18,356! Go me! Even though I was exhausted and wanted to take a nap in the back seat, I got back on the road. I headed back through the small town of Katherine and kept on going. My next stop was the Litchfield National Park area, north of Katherine and south of Darwin. This is about a 2 ½ hour drive of not much but beautiful trees, some birds occasionally, poor roadkill here and there and a ton of “Road Trains”. Think of the 18 wheelers we have back in the states. A lot of people hate driving next to them of in front of them. Well these bad boys are WORSE! They are the typical truck rig that pulls the cargo, but then you add on 2 to 3 more cargo trucks to that! These things are massive, although I will say they are not as scary and I thought they would be. They drive fairly slows and know people are going to pass them so they don’t speed up on you. Hopefully I can get a picture or video of one to show what it is like.

I got to the Litchfield National Park area around 3:30pm and decided after last night’s debacle of tenting I would try to find a place to sleep indoors lol. I found a place called Litchfield Tourist Park where I got just a basic room with a bed and AC for the night. I was checked in and passed out by 4pm! I woke up around 5:30pm kind of cold lol so I got up and decided to go take a shower so I could get ready to crash for the night. A day like today in the hot sun and humidity will take its toll on ya. As I write this, it is 8PM and I am already in bed. My dinner tonight will be an orange and some nuts because everything closed at 8 and I wasn’t in the mood to go driving around to find something to eat.

Tomorrows adventures await me, and I look forward to it.

Till next time

XO Noodle