The Top End

Katherine marks the beginning of the real top end. By then the flora and fauna have changed completely, the transition from desert to tropical woodland is complete. Orioles and friarbirds are common, great bowerbirds replace the westerns, and gekos patrol the ceilings around light fittings for insects. This time we stopped only long enough to restock and refuel, and continued northward.

Knowing that we would be coming back down this stretch of highway, we headed straight for Kakadu National Park. Along with Uluru, it is one of only two "national" parks run by the federal government, and you can tell. All the staff you encounter are contractors, there are recycling bins everywhere, each campground has a disabled campsite with wheelchair accessible tables, and you get a valid tax invoice for every payment you make. It also means that we get in for free, because this is the only other place our annual pass from Uluru is valid.

In the Top End there are only really two seasons, the Wet and the Dry. October is the final build up to the Wet and is the hottest time of year. The heat is quenched only when the rain finally arrives. The cool nights of the desert are a memory, and the only thing you need to sleep is something to keep the mosquitos at bay. The oppressive heat reduces tourist numbers making the place less crowded, but oddly, many still light campfires.

We spent our first night at Gunlom. The campground is uninspiring, but it's still a good place to camp. There is a choice of great swimming spots close by with a large waterhole at the base of the waterfall, and some great rockholes with spectacular views at the end of a short hike to the top. The value of a place to cool off in this heat is difficult to overstate, but only if there are no saltwater crocs looking for lunch. Fortunately, the rangers keep a few nice spots croc free.

Having visited Kakadu briefly in 1998, we were keen to see new things, and willing to skip ones we'd seen before. One place that rated a return visit is Barramundi Gorge. The walk in works up a good sweat, but the pools at the top and bottom of the falls are possibly the nicest in the park. From there we headed to Mardugul and set the alarm for well before sunrise.

The boat tours on the Yellow Waters wetlands really must be done. A boat is the best way to see the wetland wildlife, and the best time to do it is sunrise. The price is outright extortion ($40 pp for a two hour cruise), but no land based experience matches it and only a madman would kayak there. There were crocs everywhere, and an almost endless array of birds. Forest, azure, and collared kingfishers, brolga, jabiru, jacana, sea eagles, and all manner of ducks, geese, and herons.

With such an early start, it was easy to fit in a visit to the cultural centre, lunch on the edge of a billabong, and a visit to some of the art sites on Norlangie Rock. It turns out that most of the art at Norlangie was done in the sixties. In one way it's like being cheated, but at the same time it's probably a good thing that the real stuff is out of reach of thugs that would destroy it.

Our next night was at Muirella. Despite being virtually next door to Sandy Billabong (possibly the nicest campground in Kakadu), it has one major advantage - showers. Being able to cool down and rinse off the bug spray before bed is a treat not to be missed in this heat. Muirella also has an adjacent billabong that makes a nice morning hike. Along the track we spotted a whip snake, along with a huge range of birds including a pheasant coucal and another flock of red tailed black cockatoos. The highlight however was in the campground itself, where we witnessed a pair of forest kingfishers trying to break open an arboreal termite nest to build a nest of their own. (In these wetlands, one species of termites build their "mounds" in the trees to escape the monsoon floods.)

From there we moved to the north of the park on the edge of the East Alligator (a name that pays tribute to the ignorance of one of the early explorers). The wildlife of Kakadu is quite startling. Flashing the torch around in the evenings reveals huge numbers of spiders among the leaf litter, evident by their eyes that glisten like jewels. There are also lots of frogs moving about at night, but you can also find them during the day if you know where to look. As we hiked around the area we spotted a chestnut quilled rock pigeon and a rainbow pitta (among many others).

In the afternoon we took the tour around the Ranger uranium mine. We've done a few mine tours on this adventure, but this has to be the worst. The guide was unable to answer any interesting questions, simply regurgitating his memorised speech, and they don't even provide a glossy brochure of facts and figures. At the only stop where you could alight the bus we were required to wear hard hats and reflective clothing, despite being on a public road where anyone could stop wearing anything they wanted. The highlight however was being stuck on a bus without air conditioning in forty degree heat.

We spent our final night at Two Mile Camp on the eastern edge of the park, in preparation for the run into Darwin. We stopped briefly at Couzens lookout in Mary River National Park for a cuppa and a great view of more wetlands. Fogg Dam for lunch was something of a disappointment. It's the wrong end of the season - the dam is almost dry and most of the birds have gone elsewhere. Howard Springs was even more disappointing - an algal bloom preventing a cool-off dip.

Darwin

Despite being a capital city, Darwin is more like a country town. Even so, because expansion is constrained by the peninsula it is on, there is quite a bit of high rise building going on. It is closer to Asia than it is to any other Australian capital city, so it's cheaper for the locals to holiday overseas than at home. This also perpetuates the same kind of parochialism we've seen in Australia's other more distant states. Instead of "over east" or "the mainland", here the catch-cry is "the states" (and despite the derogatory tone, they don't mean America). It's also the only place in Australia where there is no maximum speed limit. One day we'll have to come back here in a V8 (assuming the city-centric narrow-minded politicians in Canberra don't succeed in overturning this quite sensible rule).

We restocked some of the computer bits we'd sold on the way up the highway, and found a bargain priced pair of wireless network cards for the laptops. A shockingly expensive dentist enabled temporary repairs to Bill's teeth, and the local Toyota dealer readied the cruiser for the next leg of the journey. We found time to see a few of the sights we'd missed on our last visit here, including the Aviation Heritage Centre, the (never used) WWII oil storage tunnels, Mindil markets, and a trip across the harbour on the Mandorah ferry. The final major task before leaving town was to cast our votes - a difficult choice, the liar or the idiot.

Running From The Rain

Just an hour south of Darwin is Litchfield National Park (a.k.a. Darwin's swimming pool). The key feature of this park is a huge selection of magnificent swimming spots. Unlike further south where the palms are rare and noteworthy, here they're just part of the monsoonal landscape. Here, rainforest species occur anywhere there is water, and there is still plenty of that. There are of course other natural features like the sandstone outcrops of the lost city and the "magnetic" termite mounds, but the real lure is the rockholes and waterfalls.

We camped a few nights at Florence Falls, a nice well spread out hilltop campground, just a short walk from the pool at the base of the falls. Each day we explored the park, finding somewhere different to swim. Buley Rockholes are just what a backyard swimming pool should be. The car park has signs that say "If the parking area is full, the rockholes are crowded, so please come back later". An interesting approach to overcrowding. Everywhere is beautiful, and (almost) everywhere is crowded. Walker Creek seems to be a forgotten gem, walk-in camp sites along the creek. Here we found rockholes as nice as any others in the park, but entirely deserted. A rare chance for a skinny dip.

Litchfield is also home to abandoned tin mines. The initial efforts were comparatively easy, just bagging the ore where it lay, but the subsequent mining was just as harsh as it was elsewhere. Progressing south, we made our way to Blythe homestead. Inside we stumbled upon a family of northern quolls, a rare treat indeed. (Much smaller than the quolls we saw earilier this year in Tassie.) Our last night in the park was at Sandy Creek. In addition to yet another nice pool and falls, we also noticed a small creature around the size of a bandicoot (but we've yet to figure out what it actually was). On our way out of the park we stopped at Surprise Creek, another nice pool and falls, but unfortunately the water had stopped flowing.

Since it was only a few kilometres out of the way, we decided on a quick diversion to Daly River. Although we could not find any computer work, we were twice offered the chance to pick mangos. (Sorry, not in this heat!) Just north of Daly Waters is yet another WWII historic site, Fenton airstrip. It's claim to fame (apart from its historical significance) is an aircraft graveyard. Unlike the classic American aircraft graveyards that contain actual aircraft, this one is just a few scattered bits of twisted metal not taken by the scrap merchants. Only a few pieces are even recognisable as belonging to aircraft. Unlike most other WWII historic sites, this one includes a hill with a decent view that we used as a pleasant lunch spot. The irony that all these "historic" sites are just 50 years old has not escaped us.

A night at Douglas Hot Springs NP showed us how hot a hot spring can be. The water from the spring is scalding, but it flows into the nearby Douglas River, where you can wade to the temperature of your choice or sit and let the swirling waters successively warm then cool you. It is much more dramatic than Hastings Hot Springs (which was so uninspiring that it didn't even rate a mention at the time). A similar stark contrast is the open tropical woodland surrounding the Douglas Spring and the horizontal scrub so common in southern Tassie. Back at the campground we spotted a well decorated bower - at least someone is picking up the rubbish. On the drive into the nearby Butterfly Gorge we had our first glimpse of quail (but more on that later). Unfortunately, despite the beauty of the gorge and a hot hike in, the water in the rockhole was too stagnant to be inviting.

From there we drove back to Pine Creek, which we passed through on our way north. The most dramatic feature of the town is the disused Enterprise Mine pit. It was originally an underground gold mine, then an open cut mine, and now a large lake. Unlike many of the towns in this area, the history revolves around mining and trains, not Australia's only "home soil" war. We discovered later that it was also home to a WWII military prison, but this seems to have been overlooked in the interpretive signage.

Mobile coverage in Pine Creek enabled us to pick up messages about two potential jobs, one 300 km north and the other 300 km south. We declined to retrace our steps, but accepted the other despite a substantial diversion. We also managed to land a short job in town, but not until the next day.

We filled in time by spending a night at Umbrawarra Gorge. On arriving at the campground, we found an army camp. Some of our troops were rock climbing and abseiling in the canyon. (Unlike us, they were not put off by the stagnant water in the rockholes.) They had a fine looking 6WD Mack truck that would (after a bit of work) make a nice off road camper. It was their last day, and not everyone who had been catered for arrived, leaving them with a huge excess of stores. Knowing it would (understandably) not be accepted back into the mess, they offered us what we could take rather than see it go to waste. Our first taste of combat rations - recycle whenever possible.

After taking care of that "next day" job, we headed for Edith Falls. We did the loop hike around the falls, despite the heat, knowing we could cool off in the upper pools half way round, and again at the end in the main pool.. We cooled off just a little too long, arriving in Katherine just minutes after the Post Office closed. After coercing them into opening up for us, our mail had not arrived anyway. Looks like we'll be back this way again soon. Continuing south, we stopped again in Mataranka, this time actually exploring the town. We were pleasantly surprised to get a very friendly reception from everyone we met.

Further south on a large cattle station, we cleaned up a nasty mess left by a virus. The job was lengthy, but we were made very welcome and given every opportunity to explore life on the station. We were treated to a short flight in the mustering helicopter, and offered beef at every meal. Each morning the trees were filled with flocks of red tail black cockatoos, red winged parrots, and long tail finches. The station was in the midst of their pre-wet season muster, so we got the chance to witness the cattle draft.

Having spent so much time mapping weeds, we've come to appreciate the importance of water resources. It was good to meet environmentally aware farmers, who have fenced their billabongs to limit stock damage to the precious riparian zones. At this time of year however, fire is a more critical issue. With insufficient water, the only tool to combat them is a grader and a back burn. Since it can take a day or more to get the heavy equipment in place, advance planning is essential. The Internet is invaluable, the Fire North site providing accurate information about fires.

On our way back to Katherine to pick up our mail (our fourth stop there in as many weeks), we made a quick stop in Larrimah to see the museum (which we missed on our last two visits). Once again a quick stop became an overnight stay for yet another virus clean up. Our mail had finally arrived, a record delivery time for Australia Post, and it was finally time to begin the journey westward.

Our first stop along the Victoria Highway was Flora River Nature Park. The radio was alive with fire fighting farmers, planning the movements of graders and equipment. In the park itself, there were pigs and cows - clearly a Nature Park has different rules to a National Park. Despite signs suggesting canoeing as an activity, we choose to heed the "crocs - no swimming" signs, and not kayak. A passing ranger saw our kayaks, and made a special stop at our camp to offer his own "don't kayak" warning. He also said that fresh water crocs (like the ones we'd kayaked amongst on the Roper) are a good sign, as they usually gang up to chase off salties.

A similar thing happens on land, making it a tough life for wedgies (and other raptors). They may get to soar like an eagle, but when it comes to making a home the neighbours don't like you around. As we've seen many times before, the little birds gang up to chase off the bigger predatory birds. The main feature of Flora River NP is the tufa dams, which form by calcium depostion on rocks and plant debris. As we sat alone in the park, the radio announced 'The Great Australian Bushwalk'. Apparently our bureaucrats think it's a good idea to cram our parks with people. We say, let 'em stay home and leave us alone amongst Australia's beauty. Flora River also delivered us a our biggest "build up" storm so far. Most are just a bit of thunder and (fire starting) lightning, but this one hammered us with rain for over an hour.

Gregory National Park is split into two pieces. The sights in the eastern portion are all off the highway, and we arrived there in the heat of the afternoon. Rather than hike in the heat or miss the sights, we decided to spend the afternoon in the shade on the bank of the Victoria River (a river mighty enough to bear Her Majesty's name). Amongst the many birds, we spotted a rainbow bee eater making its nest in bank of the river. There was a light intermittent rain falling on us from the trees, which we discovered later was actually cicada piss. More of nature's bounty for us to enjoy!

The oppressive heat is only getting worse. On the banks of the river, it was 40C in the shade. Two hours after sunset it was still 37, and the overnight low was just 28. Needless to say, we've had a few sleepless nights in the tent! Everywhere there are open mouthed birds resting in trees with wings partially spread. We did the escarpment hike in the cool of the morning, and even then we worked up a good sweat. In addition to spotting a short eared rock wallaby, we walked through several dramatic changes in vegetation. The views over the river valley were spectacular, despite the fire haze ever present in the sky.

The western portion of the park is (yet another) reclaimed cattle lease - the former Bulita station. Even in its heyday Bulita was marginal country, a so-called battler block. (Is this where the phrase Aussie Battler comes from?) It has several old stock routes that criss-cross it, which are now challenging 4WD tracks. We decided to take a break in the AC, and spent two days exploring them.

Our first camp was at Top Humbert yards. Rock pools along the river ensured a huge diversity of birds for our morning walk, including the biggest flock of red tailed cockatoos we've seen yet. Our second camp was in Limestone gorge, in a totally burnt out campground. A longer than usual wet prevented the prescriptive burns, resulting in an unusually bad year for fires. The campground burnt about 2 weeks before we arrived. In places it was still smouldering, and in others it was already growing back vigorously. The flies here are almost as bad as those in the East Macs

In Limestone Gorge we found more tufa dams, and a huge calcite flow. The calcite flow is created by a similar chemical deposition reaction as the tufa dams. Aside from being currently dry, the huge white expanse of calcite is reminiscent of the top end of Yellowstone NP in the US. In Limestone Gorge we spotted more quail, this time getting a good look at them. Our bird books don't agree on quail classifications, not even a little. One has six species, the other three. None are even in the same genus. If the books don't agree on what they are, how can we hope to correctly identify them?

At Timber Creek we found the first shower where the cold water was actually cold since Alice Springs. After a quick job, we continued west stopping at the Gregory Tree on the bank of the Victoria River. It is a boab that was in Gregory's base camp, Gregory being the first white fella to explore the area. From all accounts, he was more civilised that most of his contemporaries, treating the black fellas with a modicum of respect.

Further west, and almost on the border is Keep River National Park. The impressive sandstone formations are reminiscent of Purnululu NP, a sort of 2WD accessible mini Bungles. Just inside the park and only a couple of km from the highway is Cockatoo Lagoon, a hidden gem for bird watchers. Dollar bird numbers have been increasing as we have come west, and here there were at least a dozen. Star, double barred, and long tailed finches drink together, while roos and a dingo cool off in the water. The blue winged kookaburras that have been with us for a while are absent, but the ususal water birds are all here.

Keep River is also home to an art site in a natural arch that includes a depiction of the almost iconic rainbow serpent. Here we encountered a frill neck lizard for the first time since they took our copper coins out of circulation. There is also a falcon hide where aborigines would trap raptors. The hikes were hot, and we only did a few of them. Unlike many other parks in the Top End, there are no showers or croc free water to cool off in.

Once more we cross a state border. No longer will we see drink bottles emblazoned with "NT Made", instead of the more usual "Made In Australia". As we have moved through the NT, we have noticed bundles of leaves wrapped by insects. Unlike elsewhere where such things are often the product of spiders, here they are the work of green ants. It puts us in mind of the boffin recently on Radio National who had devised a set of common names for the many unnamed NT ants.

Just across the border in Kununurra, we decided to indulge in an air-conditioned room for a few days. Not only can we escape the heat, but we again have the opportunity to prepare some things for a Sydney based customer. Unfortunately, our Dell choose this moment to finally give up. Not only does this substantially reduce our productivity, it also means transferring all our primary operating software and data onto the Sony. It forced us into working shifts on the remaining laptop, but allowed Bill to kayak and Helen to use the local gym in our off shifts. It was also a chance to fix the flat we got in Gregory NP, and Kununurra Tyrepower again impressed us with their friendliness and reasonable prices.

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