Katherine

This morning we went on the 2 Gorges cruise at Nitmunik - Katherine Gorge. Its very popular here and lots of people going on various cruises. There's also a lot of people going on walks - some of them overnight!!! Some of the walks are fairly difficult - with a rating of 4 and 5 which is the highest. I had no inclination to go on any such walks, especially in the hot weather, my climb at Mt Augustus will do me for awhile.
The cruise down the 1st gorge was very leisurely, especially after our order river 'cruise' which was more like white water rafting! I was a bit disappointed with the lack of obvious birdlife although I did see a rainbow bee eater. When we reached then end of the 1st gorge, we all got off and walked about 600m to the next gorge - with the next boat. We walked past some petroglyphs - aboriginal drawings - in the cliff face above us. They were quite high and we are not sure how they were able to draw them there. The 2nd gorge was even more stunning than the 1st - breathtakingly beautiful! The gorges are only open for cruises in the dry season as the water current is just too strong during the wet.

In the afternoon we headed into town for a dip in the thermal pools. What a unique experience this turned out to be. This is a series of 4 or so pools of freshwater that bubbles from the ground at a constant temperature of approx 32c. Being in the pools is like being in a spa except of course that the pools are part of the running water from underground. The funny thing was when we arrived all we could see in the 1st pool was grey heads!! Lots of grey nomads - it looked like a scene from that movie 'Cocoon' where all the old people go into the swimming pool because it makes them feel younger!!! So, of course, we had to join them!! It was very refreshing. Further down there was lots of kids and teenagers in the 3rd pool doing bombies and slides into the 4th pool.
Heading off to Darwin tomorrow - staying for 3 nights.