Katherine Gorge
Northern Territory Tropics just a little too tropical.
Since my last post we have travelled some distance south away from the humid and hot temperatures we experienced on our journey north once we crossed the border into Northern Territory. We had to put our clocks forward another 30 minutes as we are now on Central Standard Time.
At a small place called Threeway we hit the Stuart Highway which is one of the main north south highways between Adelaide and Darwin.
The country was pretty hot and dry and we saw a number of fires lit to burn off vegetation before the wet season comes around again in November. As I alluded to in my last report the burnt look does nothing for our scenic appeciation of the landscape and seems wrong to release all that heat energy and carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. I can't help thinking there has to be a better way to manage the fire risk and biodiversity.
We found a couple of nice spots on our road north. One was at Mataranka where we stayed in a campground at Bitter Springs on the edge of Elyse National Park. There is a natural hot spring that has been developed by Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Close by was Litchfield National Park and this again was a pleasant place to visit and pass the time camping and swimming. The day time temperatures were getting up to the mid 30’s. Add humidity of around 60 percent and it became a bit uncomfortable. It was great where we has a swimming spot to cool off but most of the time it was too hot to do much walking or any form of physical activity. We visited Wangi Springs on the western edge of the park which has a swimming hole adjacent to the campsite as well.
We were keen to get to Darwin and see the Botanic Gardens and Museum. We went as far as Berry Springs and left the trailer at the campground while we shot into Darwin for the day. 17th August was also our wedding anniverary so we treated ourselves to a nice lunch down by the waterfront. Again the daytime temperatures were about 5 degrees hotter than normal and the humidity was also getting up. Locals were saying there could be an early start to the rainy season and some of the forcast temperatures for the Kimberleys looked like they would be in the mid thirties most days.
This caused us to have a wee rethink of our plans. Hitting the Northern Territory in May and June seemed to be a better plan and we were too late to escape the onset of humid conditions in September. So after a little hand wringing, we turned south once more to escape the tropics. We snuck in a couple more days at Edith Falls where again we enjoyed the swimming in 24 degrees freshwater pools whenever we felt a little too warm.
So over the couse of a week or so we drove south on the Stuart Highway to Tenant Creek where it was much cooler. We stopped in at a couple of geological reserves called The Pebbles and Devils Marbles where they had some usual granite rock formations.
From there we made our way to Alice Srings where we have the Toyota booked in for a oil and fuel filter change.
That enough for now.
Maria and I are both keeping well and busy planning things to do around McDonnell Ranges National Park and Ayres Rock. (Uluru).
Rudy Tetteroo
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