Day 21 Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge)

 Awoken in the middle of the night by Curlews with their haunting almost screaming call, followed by disturbed teens from the nearby school camp, presumably because of the birds' call scaring them; we started the day with a cruise on the river through 3 of the gorges, with 30 of these year 8 kids. We had a good tour guide, sharing the Dreamtime stories and geological history of the gorges. After we reached a rocky area, we hopped out of one boat and then a short walk away, we got into another boat, after enjoying a little Indigenous rock art on the gorge cliffs. From there we were taken down a second gorge, and heard how the 1955 film 'Jedda' had been filmed there. We again got out and a short walk away into a third boat for the third gorge. After we explored the gorge, we were taken to a sacred women's site, where they went to birth, the Lilypad rockpool. Surrounded by sheer cliffs, with a waterfall and some rock art high up on the cliffs, the cold, green water was inviting but too cold for us, but all the teens and a few brave oldies on the tour had a swim. Matt was able to take photos of the rock art with the zoom lens on the camera, so we could get a better view of the art. We eventually headed back to the boat and returned to the second boat and gorge, spying a few freshwater crocs on the return trip. 

 

saw our first multi toothed chompy log

We headed to the Clipper, and I had a rest, before we started doing some research for some future activity options in Kakadu. Matt and I then headed back to the gorge, and did a steep walk to the lookout to enjoy the sunset.We got there in good time and were able to briefly enjoy the views to ourselves and there was no boats whirring about on the water, and we could enjoy the beauty and nature that we were surrounded by. We were then joined by a couple of others to watch the sun set behind the smoke haze from fire management, and some beautiful clouds, which brought more colour to the skies. It was really quite spectacular, and well worth the effort, as I was carrying my heavy IV nutrition at this time of night.

 On our return trip, we spied our first live Kangaroo (as in the first live kangaroo we have seen in almost 6000km . we've seen a lot of overnight road kill kangaroos, all of them modified by road trains, emus pigs and eagles, but no live bouncy kangaroos.) and as we headed on, and it was getting dark, we heard a rustle in the leaf litter, and spied the back half of a snake, which we saw disappear down the hill, and it was about 1-1.5m long and we suspect was a Northern brown snake (AkA Danger Noodle). We returned to the Clipper for me to cook dinner and watch a bit of Football (soccer) with David and Brenda, as their daughter was playing in the NT premier league series, and it was being broadcast. The curlews came out again and serenaded us with their cry, before I retired to my nightly routine of writing this blog.