Katherine

12 May

Cutta Cutta Caves

Today we headed for Katherine and made a stop at the Cutta Cutta Caves.

 These wonderful caves were carved out of the rock by water reacting with plant material and dissolving with the limestone underneath. This resulted in these caves forming over a very long period. They are now the home to many bats (some of which are only found in these caves), snakes and frogs. They were found in the early 1900's when a graziers cow fell into them. The stalagtites and stalagmites grow at an amazingly slow rate. One that had been broken off during the war when soldiers had taken refuge there was now growing back but was only about 20mm long and 3mm wide.

Katherine Hot Springs

On arriving at Katherine we headed to the Katherine Hot Springs to have lunch and freshen up. The temperature outside was about 30 degrees and even though the water temperature was about 34 degrees it was really refreshing. The swimming area at the springs is quite long with waterfall at the end which Thomas and Declan enjoyed.

From there we sought out the visitor information centre, booked a cruise on Katherine Gorge for the following day and headed out to the Nitmiluk National Park where we set up camp. The National Park camping facility was unlike any we had experienced before. They had powered sites, a swimming pool, hot showers and flushable toilets, a laundry, a kiosk and bar, and even night time entertainment. This was a lot more than most of the caravan parks we have stayed at.

13 May

Katherine Gorge

Today we took the Katherine Gorge Cruise and once again found we had beautiful weather. We took the two gorge cruise which lasted about 2 hours. This means that you cruise up the river in one boat, get out and walk about 300 metres and hop into a second boat. The scenery was stunning and our guide, Rocky, was quite funny and very informative telling us about the formation of the gorge, Aboriginal beliefs and the animals that inhabit the area. There were about 30 species of fish, bats, birds and fresh water crocodiles just to name a few. The salt water crocodiles that are found there are trapped and removed by rangers.
After the cruise we spent a quiet afternoon playing cricket, going for a swim and listening to the live entertainment (much improved on the country and western act we encountered at Mataranka). Ahhh - this is the life!