We farewelled Debbie, Nikayla and
Jacinta this morning – probably for the last time until we visit them in
Mannum, South Australia (but there is always FaceTime, Messages and Kik). We did a few hours on the road before
stopping again in Katherine for the night.
We had arranged to meet Mark & Sharon (our Hydeaway Bay fellow
travellers for a catch-up in Katherine for the night as they were heading north
after visiting Uluru, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs, etc.). There was very little happening on the road
today except for the usual grass fires / back-burning and the usual road works
and road trains. Upon arriving at
Katherine, Mark and Sharon had already arrived and set up their camp. After setting up, they came over for a couple
of hours of catching up, a few glasses of wine and a bite to eat, they are
really lovely people.
The following morning, Josh
helped Mark out with a couple of Mr Fix-It things (luckily Josh packed lots of
repair items to help out others and touch wood we haven’t needed much of this ourselves). Before farewelling them, Mark offered to take
us all for individual rides on his Harley – how could we resist? The sound of the engine is the best part but
the kids had a bit of fun being doubled around the caravan park and waving at
everyone along the way. We had planned
to visit Katherine School of the Air but as we left a little late we skipped
and started heading west towards WA. We
found very little to look at for the first part of this trip (not that we went
looking) but we did notice a road train pulled over on the side of the
road. Josh has been wanting to measure
our car and van alongside one of these amazing vehicles. This fuel tanker was towing 4 trailers
totalling just over 53 metres in length, it weighed 170 tonne when full and was
a 6 cylinder cummins turbo diesel. From
front to back of our rig, we didn’t even reach the end of his first
trailer. The guys driving these vehicles
put their lives on the line and as fellow road users, we realise how important
it is to show these guys a lot of respect out on the road. Further on our journey, we passed the usual
cattle on the sides of the road but we started to notice a change in the
scenery. We originally began to see a
lot of large grassy mountains but they had rock layers appearing in
sections. Further in towards Gregory
National Park these grassy mountains became rock mountains and they were
stunning. The sheer size of these were
magnificent and they were spectacular to look at. It really had me in awe how these sites were
created millions of years ago – it would have been a great sight to see. We pulled in to the Victoria River Roadhouse
after a few hours of driving to make some lunch and stretch our legs. The outlook from here is really pretty. We only drove on for less than another
hundred kilometres but along the way we crossed the Victoria River and this is
where we began our siting of boab trees!
We pulled into Timber Creek, a sweet old town right on the Victoria
River. Upon pulling in, we decided to do
a sunset tour along the river – yes another boat cruise – but they are all very
different and all extremely beautiful, and the Victoria River is no
exception. The Victoria River is the
largest river in the Northern Territory and again has a lot of wildlife that we
were interested in seeing. We went to
meet for the cruise around 4pm and a big old fashioned red and which made it
quite personalised. First we had a bit
of a tour around the town learning about the history of the place. We pulled up at the river but before boarding
the boat were given a few fruits off a boab tree to taste. It was quite sweet and spongy, a bit like
dried apple, but much sweeter like fairy floss.
Next we boarded our tour boat and found a seat. Our journey was 35 kilometres up the river
and back again. As we headed up the
river we passed a lot of birdlife and wildlife such as saltwater crocodiles,
buffalo, wild pigs and both male and female jabirus. However, the highlight of our trip towards
the dinner pontoon was seeing a cow stuck in the extremely soft mud on the edge
of the water. She was a decent size and
her branding told us she was about four years old. She was buried in past the tops of her legs
and half way up her hide. She wasn’t
budging - I’m not sure if it was because she was just exhausted from trying to
free herself or if the suction from the mud was just too hard to get out
of. We didn’t know how to help but we
certainly didn’t want to leave her in this predicament waiting for a crocodile
to come and feast on her for dinner. Our
guide decided to ram the cow with the end of the boat to see if we could budge
her in any direction. It was an eerie
sound that came from the cow’s mouth when we hit her, but it worked. She had put in some effort with us and
luckily was able to move slightly into the river, and enough to turn around and
try to make her way back up the riverbank.
With each step, again she sunk into the mud, just as deep as she was
before. We turned the boat around and
used the engines to spray a bit of water up over her for a drink – but she was
still stuck. We hit her with the boat
again! Again that sound emerged from her
mouth. She was pretty unhappy with us to
the point that she put a lot of effort into taking a lot of high knee steps and
freeing herself from the mud – we all cheered, except for Josh of course. He would have liked to see the croc versus
cow scenario! We had reached our target
35kms down the river to where there was a small caged pontoon. We had a light dinner of hot and cold
finger-food once we climbed on board it.
The tour guide had his own fishing rod on board the pontoon and threw
his line in as we ate. Sure enough,
within the first minute he was winding in a catfish. He placed it on a tray and swung the tray out
over the river for the birds to fly in, grab with their talons and then keep
flying. Our guide did this again before
handing the rod over to Sami who also caught a catfish. After watching the sun setting over the river
we climbed back onto the boat and hot-tailed it all the way back to the bus
avoiding floating logs, back on the bus and back to camp for the night.
Thursday morning we were supposed
to check out but we had decided to stay the additional day to further
investigate some of the sites we were shown from the bus last night. We did a bit of schoolwork before driving up
to the lookout over the town and reading about the “Nackeroos” who protected
the area in the war. Next we stopped at
a bridge that crossed the river into Bradshaw Army military camp– obviously we
weren’t allowed into this area. We went
to a nearby boat ramp at Big Horse Creek where Josh threw a line in hoping that
the fish would bite but that wasn’t to be.
Sami spent her time here killing the ants and making a nice neat pile of
them all. We continued our own tour
further down the road to the Gregory Tree (much the same as the previously
mentioned Stuart Tree). Augustus Charles
Gregory was another great explorer that carved his name and date into a tree,
this time a large boab alongside the Victoria River. He is also known for inventing the pack
saddle and the Gregory Compass which could be used on horseback. Our last stop was the original Timber Creek
Police Station which has been turned into a museum. There were a lot of old artefacts to look at
such as the old saws, the dunnie and wash bath, hide strapped bed, old wooden
oven and the hot irons. Lots to see and
learn. Upon arriving back at camp we
took our chairs and sat and chatted to some other young people in the park,
Simone and Stuart and their friends whose names I’m not sure of. The four of them had spent all day out on the
Victoria River fishing but had come back empty handed. There are so many lovely people out on the
road to sit and have a chat to – good company and good stories.
