Leaving the disturbing imagery of naked German hikers behind us, we head to Katherine. This is less than 200kms from Victoria River Roadhouse and at 130km an hour, not a long journey.

The road is, long, flat, and mostly straight. The occasional corner is thrown in there for diversity.

You won’t believe this but the sky is blue, and we have no clouds.

The wave game continues; though the participation levels definitely fluctuate when you get closer to the populated areas. For example, heading into Kununurra and Katherine, the number of drivers returning the friendly greeting diminishes. Sad really.

Animals are not much different, the occasional native (wallaby and kangaroo) but mostly cows. I guess this also relates to being more populated, the land is farmed.

What is noticeable is the increase in greenery. The real move from a land that looks like it is struggling to green trees that seem healthy and almost thriving. The rivers and creeks have water in them, previously they were rock beds and puddles at most.

We arrive into Katherine at around 1100am. We head to the Visitor Information Centre. Parking our faithful steed amongst all the other Toyota Prado and 4×4 vehicles. The visitor centre is great. Young Chloe behind the desk is both helpful and informative.

We purchase our park passes for Kakadu (didn’t realise we needed them), two spots for the canoe tour up the Katherine Gorge, and two seats on the Yellow Water Sunset cruise in Kakadu. Totaling over $400. No one said this trip was going to be cheap! But Chloe was amazing and we left the Visitor Information Centre feeling fully informed and centered.

Next stop is to find our accommodation. It is 30 degrees and we have air conditioning on our mind. I requested an early check in as part of our booking, so we were hopeful and are looking forward to a night off from setting up the turtle and doing everything by torch light. Unfortunately, the reception at Pine Tree Motel is closed until 200pm, the cleaners who are buzzing from room to room are studiously ignoring us.

We decide to find a place for lunch, another novelty eating out! And we settle on a sports club down the road. The beer was cold, the food was edible, the air conditioning was pumping, and we were feeling happier. Still only 130pm.

Stock up time. We needed a few alcoholic beverages to see us through the remainder of our trip. So we head to the local, BUT here the liquor laws are different again.

1. You can only buy alcohol between 2-8pm
2. There is no restriction on how much, but you must show your ID

Of course it is not 200pm yet. Supermarket fills in the time, and back we go.

The liquor store has Police stationed at the entry. You have to show them your ID before entering. Jason strikes up a conversation with a lovely, and very attractive, police officer. The store must have a police presence whilst it is open.

Jason shows his Police ID, just for kicks, and they have a bit of a chat. She asks where we are staying and the chat continues. We buy our supplies and then return to Keem.

Now we can finally check in to our motel.

So, this accommodation was rated fairly well, the reviews were ok. It was around 125$ per night. So we expected a pretty reasonable motel. Pulling into the parking lot we were less than impressed.

Firstly, the name, and you have to chuckle. There is one pine tree out the front of the motel. It is looking worse for wear, and could probably do with being cut down for firewood. There are around 6 palm trees which are in much better condition, but as there was already a Palm Tree Motel, Palm Court Motel, and likely other variations, I guess they decided that the pine tree would be their point of difference.

The photos on the web site showed their pool, surrounded by the palm trees. It did not show the façade of the motel, which looked dingy at best. Oh well, it has a bed, and electricity and a toilet I don’t have to hike to in the middle of the night. Luxury.

The chap at reception was very pleasant and we got to talking. We mentioned our interest at the local liquor laws.

And apparently we should NOT have been sold any alcohol. The lovely police officer was not enquiring to our accommodation out of politeness, but because 4 out of 5 motels are licensed. And because they are licensed you are not allowed to take your own alcohol onto the premises. Our lovely police officer should have told us we were not allowed to purchase anything and sent us on our way.

Thank god I am married to a tall, handsome, cop. Winning.

So why have this rule? Apparently it was deemed easier to limit where you could take alcohol rather than limit what you can buy…

We make it into our room. Brick walls, painted white, one double and two single beds, TV, fridge, and the beloved ensuite. The net curtains don’t quite cover the windows, and could do with a good wash, everything looks dated, but we are very happy to be there.

After the usual drudgery of unpack, repack, and clean of the portable fridge, it was swim time.

The pool was freezing and not overly clean. So one dip each was sufficient. Sit in the sun to defrost, and decide on dinner plans. I had seen an advert for Marksie’s Stockman’s Camp Tucker.

The website described it as a wonderful marriage of white and Indigenous cultures, through our delicious food, flavoured from native bush. Send your taste buds on a wild ride for the night.

The setting is reminiscent of a Stockman’s Camp complete with bush sounds and free roaming wildlife. Sit back and enjoy the huge star filled sky, share a few yarns while you sip your billy tea.

A truly unique Outback Bush Camp Tucker Experience, you wont get anywhere else..

It sounded interesting, so we booked for 700pm and did nothing but laze about until our taxi fetched us at 630! As we were prepping ourselves to go out, drinking our illegal beer and wine, we wished we had just stayed in. But there is no Uber here and definitely no Uber Eats.

The taxi driver, who had been on the job two days, could neither understand our accent nor figure out where it was we were going. So out came google maps and we found our way as a team. Bless. I was very pleased with his music of choice though. Nothing like some full on rapping profanity to kick start your evening.

Marksies was only 7km out of town, so we were there in no time. But not actually there, we ended up at the neighbouring property instead.

The chap who greeted us was very understanding and was accompanied by a little wallaby. This little chap was following him around like a puppy, in fact we could pat him. He was orphaned and had been hand raised. So damn cute! We were escorted to the correct location and the evening began.

Markie can talk the hind leg off a chicken. And he has stories. There was about thirty of us listening intently to the tales of the stockmen and the cooks at stations across Australia dating back to the early 1900. It was very interesting.

The night was not comfortable though, we were being bombarded by bugs that would get into your hair or fly down your top. And the outside dinner was accompanied by a, less than enjoyable, aroma of road kill. And I mean bad, real bad! I could not help but think, were those bugs freshly hatched from the rotting corpse nearby. Less than ideal.

Part of the experience includes how to make bush tea, and swinging the billy. This ensures the tea is infused correctly and that the leaves do not rise to the top. What do I care, I don’t drink tea. I do however, now have a certificate for successfully swinging the billy. You will also be pleased to hear that I swung overarm, not underarm.

The certificate will be available for viewing.

900pm rolls around and our taxi arrives to pick us up, at the wrong location again.

It was an interesting experience, I don’t think it was worth the money, and maybe we were too tired to fully enjoy it. We bid our farewells and head back to the motel. Bed is calling.

Another early start tomorrow, as we have to be at the Katherine Gorge by 745am. Chloe told us to leave at 630. Oh for a sleep in!

Good night, tomorrow THE GORGE!

Katherine Gorge – June 10^th

Turns out that it is only a 40-minute drive to the gorge and the roads are blissfully quiet, and the sun is coming out. We make it in plenty of time to have our prepacked breakfast and feed some of the local birds.

The birds here are pretty bloody stunning. We were surrounded by the Blue Face Honey Eater, and they were not shy, eating out of our hands and hoping up on the table. We were also feeding some sort of pigeon type bird, but it was lovely and cute, and clearly very respectful of the BFHE even though it was double the size.

There was also a couple of kookaburras. Thought they refused to be enticed down, even with promises of bread and ham. Other tourists started to arrive so it was time to farewell our feathered friends.

The tour starts with a 30-minute boat ride up through gorge one. You do not swim, canoe, or kayak in gorge one. Well, you might. But you would only do it once as salt water crocodiles are confirmed to live there. And they will eat you. Or at the very least bite you and store you under water until they are ready to eat you.

The skipper informs us that no salties, using my local lingo now, have been found in gorge two and three (YET) and it is safe for us to paddle and swim. The way they throw around the word “yet” both amuses and concerns me. But I think Jason looks way more appetizing than I do, so I should be fine.

The boat deposits you at the pickup location for the canoes. From there on in, you are on your own to do as you please. There are about 30 people in total, and its lovely to be self-managed.

We spend the next three and a half hours paddling up gorge 2, then carrying our canoes to gorge 3 where we continue paddling until we reach the end. You can carry your canoe to gorge 4 but the distance and rocks just make it a miserable idea. So we climb, we site see, we swim. In general, have a bloody lovely time.

The water is warmer than Lake Argyle and the pool at the motel, so we enjoy the swim. You do wonder what is lurking beneath. Again, pays not to think about it.

There were tracks off the side of the river where we went exploring, we didn’t bring any hiking shoes with us, so we did the only sensible thing. We walked in bare feet (no snakes, no snakes, no snakes) to a beautiful waterfall. As we were all doing our own thing, we had the place to ourselves, stunning.

Aboriginal rock art sites were scattered along the river, but after much clambering and scaling of rocks, the expedition was abandoned due to health concerns (Jason’s physical health if I had fallen).

We slowly make our way back to the meeting point and are safely returned to Keem. We had intended to do a hike around the walls of the gorge, but the canoeing has wiped us out. So we have our lunch and prepare for Kakadu. Our next stop and our last stop living out of the turtle.