It’s important to learn from your mistakes…

We drove out of Elsey NP, stopping to check out a swimming spot recommended by the neighbours that replaced Mr Yellow Toenail. It was nowhere near as good as the one made by Family Yellow Toenail, and definitely didn’t look crocodile free enough to warrant a swim. 

Nice suggestion, replacement Yellow Toenail

We carried on into Mataranka, and it was heaving, with caravans and camper trailers everywhere. As we drove past the park, we got a glimpse of whipcracking champion, Nathan Griggs cracking whips. He was cracking two whips, one in each hand, and both were on fire. It’s as if just cracking a whip ain’t enough these days, but you need to douse them in fuel and duel-wield to excite a crowd. However, it was not impressive enough to make us stop.

We got to Katherine mid-morning and started on our huge task list that had accrued since we left the bright lights of Normanton. As it was Sunday most things were closed, including the bottle shop, but we got our shopping, and spent some time in the tourist information centre buying our Kakadu permits and getting information on the local area. It seems that we have hit a very touristy and expensive area, and this has certainly lowered our expectations. We have decided to spend a few nights in Nitmiluk Gorge National Park, before heading to Kakadu.

We then spent over an hour freezing in the over air-conditioned McDonalds using their free wifi to post a few blogs and have something from their gourmet menu. Eating here was something I later regretted during my McSquirts. Oh how I suffer for my art.

As we were driving into Nitmiluk, we spotted the Dutch trio driving in the opposite direction. After a brief and harrowing flashback, we recouped and decided we’d have to be careful over the next week, as we must only be a few days behind them. We arrived at Nitmiluk around 4pm and set the tent up on the hard, rocky ground. Getting the pegs in and moving the tent several times caused a few meltdowns, but we got there in the end. It was a nice place, if not a little expensive ($37 per night for an unpowered site) and even had a pool. Luckily it wasn’t too packed, and we tucked into our pot noodles and went to bed.

There was some nice birdlife around the site, including quite a few bowerbirds. I was worried that my cock-blocking reputation might have reached them, but they didn’t seem too bothered by me.

She's gonna love this!

Becky had circled a lovely walk for us. This one was nearer 9km, and although waaay over our limit, we felt we needed to see some of the gorge, otherwise we’ve just wasted $73 for two nights camping. We set off just after 10am, past another huge colony of little red flying foxes, towards the top of the gorge.

Becky has started writing her blog entry about these fellas 

By the time we’d reached the first look out, we were already tiring of the whole thing.

This it?

But we kept on, and on and on and on and on. We’d walked a little over 4km by the time we reached Pat’s lookout, and it was a very nice lookout. We sat down, drank some water and I said “we’re only 600m from the next lookout, and it says you can get a good look at the second part of the gorge”, which I now know to look eerily similar to the first part of the gorge.

Boodjamulla was better.

Becky reluctantly agreed that we should try to see as much as possible, and we headed off to the next spot. What we didn’t check was how hard going it was, and it was rough. After 600m of rock scrambling we finally made it, and Becky was in full moan mode. She’d had enough of the walk, and the rock scramble to a lookout not that dissimilar to the last had pushed her over the edge.

Wow, the second gorge looks so different

While we were there, a chap at the spot suggested that doing a longer loop, rather than following the path back, would be easier. He made a reasoned point that the route away from the gorge edge should be less of a scramble and therefore quicker. This made sense, so we decided we’d do the same route, just 10 minutes behind him and his family. After 500m of rougher, harder rock scrambling we realised that not only was this path longer, it was also a lot tougher. By the time we reached camp we’d walked for over 4 hours and covered approximately 12km. Becky has currently sworn off any walk over 3km… but we never really learn.

The rest of the day was a struggle to rehydrate and cool down. I even took a dip in the campsite pool. The wildlife around campsites is good enough, so fuck the whole hiking thing.

Walked all of 1metre from my camp for this Blue-faced honeyeater

We had a lovely bolognaise for dinner and went to bed utterly shattered. I feel it is worth mentioning a French family camped near by with between 4-7 kids. I didn’t get the exact number of kids due to the father getting a little creeped out by me trying to do a head count of his kids. Although they were quite noisy, we didn’t get annoyed once. I think we might have reached peak frustration with people after the Dutch incident and passing them on the way in has reminded us of how bad it can get. Or we were just too tired to care. Besides, large French families remind me of my friend, Thomas, and that’s not a bad thing. His kids are nicer and better behaved though.

The next morning we headed back to Katherine, to shop for the next seven days in Kakadu and post another blog. I have been scheduling them a few days apart, so they can appear when we are out of range for a while. Despite the huge burden this has become, I think I’m getting the hang of it. Shame it’s not 10 years ago when blogging was a thing.

We also booked our next car service at Kmart automotive Darwin. The second battery seems to be losing charge quicker, meaning the fridge keeps powering off. Could it be that Kmart automotive Cairns wasn’t trying to rip us off? This made us re-think the whole, ignore the advise of mechanical experts thing and booked the rear brakes and an engine degrease, to try and find the source of an oil leak that doesn’t seem to affect the oil levels. It looks like Darwin is going to be very expensive.

Next stop Kakadu.