Sorry about the recent lack of posts - something to do with having one weekend off for the whole month of October...
Anyway, my much-awaited two weeks off has finally arrived (one week for Ryan), so we decided it was time to do some more exploring. Funny how whenever you mention to anyone here that you are having holidays, the immediate question is "so, are you heading out of the Territory?". As tempting as a cheap flight to Southeast Asia sounded, we thought we should see a bit more of the Top End while we were here, so Kununurra and the East Kimberley it was.
It hasn't quite turned wet up here yet, but a soggy camping trip was a definite possibility. Remembering the built-in shower our current tent provided during our trip through Palm Valley, we decided it might be wise to invest in a more water-proof shelter prior to leaving. After visiting all the camping stores in Darwin (all three to be precise) and being very much uninspired by the selection of tents, true to form, Ryan turned to the Internet. We chose an excellent Black Wolf Turbo Tent, found the cheapest one in Australia and had it shipped to Darwin. Unfortunately it arrived the day after we left...
Anyway, after a generous sleep-in (after finishing work sometime around midnight on Saturday night)(started an operation ten minutes before my 14hr shift was due to end, and once you're in, you're in...), we left Darwin late on Sunday and headed towards Katherine.
We had been wanting to see Katherine Gorge since speeding past it on our original trip up here, so we pulled in and booked onto the last remaining cruise for the afternoon. There was some excitement for Ryan when a couple of prototype Ford Territories pulled into the parking lot. They had black plastic moulding and paintjobs in distorting geometric designs so you couldn't tell their true shapes, and were flanked by an armada of various other Fords. Their crew of indoorsy-looking engineers joined us for the cruise, but not before moving the vehicles to a more isolated parking lot and covering them over. If only we had have been brazen enough to take some photos...
The gorge itself was pretty impressive. The whole system is split up by rockbars which divide it into a series of smaller gorges - our cruise was only up the first two, with a walk past some Aboriginal rockart in between. We also managed to score an extra guide who accompanied a tour group and repeated over the microphone everything the Aboriginal guide said in German.
The gorge was very open to begin with, but gradually the walls got higher and closer together, and the scenery got more impressive the further up we ventured. I would have loved to have hired a canoe and gone exploring, but the heat was oppressive, and Ryan is hard to convince at the best of times :).
We decided to treat ourselves to a motel room on our first night (the lure of air-conditioning), and spent a restless night stressing over all the camping gear in the back of our ute getting nicked (the town has a bit of a reputation...)
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