Saturday, September 10, 2016

Day 1 Darwin to Katherine

The route.
The vehicle outside the hostel in Darwin.
Our guide Damien. Note the leg cast.
Our first roadside picnic.
Edith Falls in the Nitmiluk National Park.

Australian boab trees!
Oliver and I at Katherine Gorge.
Our first night of camping... in permanent tents.

Saturday, September 10th
I checked out and waited outside the hostel for 20 minutes before our overland truck came. It looks similar to the African one only smaller. Our guide is Damien and he has a big walking cast on his left leg from an accident a few weeks ago. He fell backwards off the truck and damaged his heel.

We loaded up the 14 people and immediately set off on our journey. I sat at the very back beside a young girl from Berlin, who lives in Sydney, and her cousin who is travelling with her. We stopped at Pine Creek for a pit stop and a snack. The weather is very sunny, hot and humid. Later we stopped for lunch in a small town. We had cold cut sandwiches and some veggies. Then Damien asked if anyone wanted to sit up front and I volunteered. We had a good time talking and getting to know each other a bit. The group seems quite nice, mostly Germans with three Irish, two Aussies and me.

We continued our drive into the Kimberley. This is a special geological section of Australia because it was originally a separate floating tectonic plate that crashed into Australia eons ago. It consists of ancient, steep-sided sandstone mountain ranges with with steep ridged gorges cut through by rivers swollen with the extreme seasonal monsoon rains and this climate has removed much of the soil. We drove on to Nimiluk National Park and on to Edith Falls. This was an excellent example of the role water has played in shaping the environment.

When we got there Damien got us all to sit down on the grass and gave us a heartfelt talk about the plight of the Aboriginals. He knew we had seen some lazing around and some that were under the influence. He told us to not be too quick to judge them as they have been treated awfully, from the time of the first settlers right to the present day.

The falls were quite pretty and most of us hiked up a hill to both the top pool and the main falls, and had a swim in the pool. The temperature of the water was beautiful. I hiked with Ollie the cousin. Then we walked back down to the lower pool where I had another swim because it was very hot. The temperature was in the upper thirties.
After that we loaded up again and drove to Katherine where we stopped at a bottle shop at Woolworth's and I bought a flat of beer (24 cans) because we won't be anywhere near a bottle shop for the next week. Many of the towns we are going to are in 'dry' areas. Damien warned us to take our ID in with us as there would be police inside checking everyone's ID. I think this is an attempt to keep alcohol out of the hands of young people. Then we drove on to our campsite for the night where we dropped off our beer in the fridge at the camp. This is a camp with permanent tents. After we dropped off our stuff we drove to Katherine Gorge and did another small hike up a hill in the heat to a viewpoint over the river. I also saw my first boab tree here in the parking lot. Boab trees are also called bottle trees and are related to the baobab trees of Africa, where they are also called the 'tree of life'.

Back to the truck and we drove back to camp. We unpacked and moved into our tents. I have my own for tonight, and probably will for the whole trip as the other three males on the trip are with their partners. Then we cut up some veggies and Damien made us a stir-fry. We sat around a campfire and ate and had a couple of drinks. We all packed it in early, as we are all tired. I was very tired from the three day kid camp and the late flight.

Our participants are:
Anna 26 Germany and her cousin Oliver 35 Germany
Gudrun 60 Germany
Katherina 32 Germany
Albert 54 Germany and his wife Anja 53 Germany
Jamie 22 Ireland and his travel companion Samantha 25 Ireland
John 27 Melbourne and his wife Lucy 28 Melbourne
Denise 27 Ireland
Tomo 32 Japan

and me.

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