Katherine NT

Our last day in Katherine was a big one. First stop was the Katherine Outback Experience, based on Tom and Annabel Curtain's big working cattle property, a few kilometres out of town - off the Stuart Highway.  

At first sight - a few things looked very familiar to us - a young horse in the yard ...........

.... and quite a familiar looking arena - but about twice the size of what we're used to at Freshford/Forest Park back in Canberra ............

We sat down for the show - starting with Steph and "Espresso Martini" in the lunge arena. Steph described the young untrained horse (mare) as "spicy". She was being trained to accept Steph to approach her (without turning her hind quarters to her and delivering a kick) and eventually putting a halter and lead rope on her. 

We sat spellbound for over half an hour watching the process. Steph got within about 40cm of the horse's head eventually - but Espresso Martini wouldn't co-operate any more than that this morning. Steph had a mic on and talked us through everything she was doing - quite mesmerising really. As she says horses teach you PATIENCE! 

Interestingly, we noticed that as soon as Espresso Martini got let out into the holding pen she very quickly became more co-operative and accepted a halter and a big love up from Steph - but that was away from the main stage and everyone's attention!

There were quite a few families at this show so halfway through the Espresso Martini halter drama they offered the little ones a diversion - hand feeding the baby pigs and goats. That was very popular with the kids!  

Next we saw horses at a more advanced stage of training. This beauty had been trained to lie down on command - onto a swag. Others were just learning the early stages of this skill (lowering the head first).

They train their working horses to accept animals riding on their backs - 'cos apparently when you're out mustering in the Outback riders often have to carry their muster dogs with them - or a baby calf maybe?

They train their horses to work with buffalos too as they're a pretty common presence on an Outback muster too - along with feral goats and donkeys. This Albino buffalo was a very pretty resident on the property - and happy to accept a pat and a few snacks.

.... as were the resident donkeys.

Australian Brahman cattle are the foundation of the beef industry in the NT. They easily handle tropical conditions and are resistant to ticks and parasites. The station horses and working dogs are all trained to work with these massive, powerful beasts - although Steph demonstrated to us how gentle they can be once they're used to humans (although their tongues are like sandpaper she says).

We saw working dogs at various stages of their training working with the goats - and then the goats hopping up on the backs of the horses. The goats couldn't wait to do this after all those young muster dogs had finished herding them around and around the arena!

They wait until the dogs are at an advanced stage of training before they work with the Brahman cattle.

A demonstration of Australian Stockmans' Challenge skills and what's involved with Camp Drafting was pretty thrilling!

Although this looks a pretty showy trick in the pic below it was explained as getting the horses trained to cope with all the demands of an outback muster: being able to

jump up on a truck or float without ramps etc, coping with whips cracking, scary big animals everywhere etc etc.

The last demonstration was about training horses to be led as a group on short ropes.

Steph was using Tom Curtain's old roping saddle for this work - a fact I wouldn't have even noticed a few years back before I started to learn things about saddles.

These horses looked pretty chilled after their hard morning's work in the arena.

We really enjoyed the show at the Katherine Outback Experience. No doubt this was due to our increased interest in horses these days (thank you Abi and Sammy) but also because Rob and I still have some strong Queensland Outback DNA in our blood (thanks to our grandparents) that must score us some recognition with the dust, the animals, the harsh environment and the resilient characters who work with all that. 

Afterwards we enjoyed a simple but delicious lunch at the Pop Rocket Cafe under the trees outside the Tourist Information Centre, probably the only classy, hipster type experience you'll find in Katherine township.

We visited the highly recommended Top Didj Art Gallery a few minutes drive from our Discovery Park on Gorge Road after lunch. The gallery, which has been in existence for around 30 years, represents around 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait artists including Judy Napangardi Watson, members of the Pwerle family, The Nnapurulla family, Makinti Napanangka, and the Tjampitjinpa, Tjapaltjarri and Japaljarri clans. There were big prices on the works in this room.......

... and more affordable lesser known works in this area of the gallery where local and interstate artists come and work when they want to. An amazing gallery!

We were booked into a Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge Cruise on our last afternoon in Katherine. The Nitmiluk National Park is part of the traditional lands of the Jawoyn people and the whole of the gorge area is a very big part of Jawoyn dreaming.  We set out in the late afternoon for a two hour cruise of two of the thirteen gorges of Nitmiluk.

The gorges are home to many fresh water crocodiles (and the occasional Saltie!). It's nesting season and we saw a number of plump looking females sunning themselves on the sandy edges of the gorge. 

These sandstone rocks are over 1.6 billion years old - they were once part of a river delta when seas covered much of Northern Australia. They make a dramatic backdrop to the gorge.

At this point we disembarked our first boat - and walked for around 400 metres before boarding a second boat to cruise the second gorge........ allowing us to get this close up view of some Aboriginal rock paintings.

Not long after we started cruising the second gorge the so called "Jedda Rock" came into view. The 1955 film Jedda was the first Australian feature film shot in colour and the first to star Aboriginal lead actors. It was largely shot in Nitmiluk Gorge. The water near the rock is tied to Jawoyn Dreaming stories, specifically the Rainbow Serpent, and is a sacred site.

In times of flood in the wet season the water in the gorge can reach above the level of the second small "cave" in the pic below.

Returning to our boat parked in the first gorge, before the trip back ................

The cruise was a lovely experience and in the quietness of our return to the landing jetty I had time to look at my sneakers after our 3 weeks in FNQ and the Top End. They were new sneakers for this trip - the red dirt and the wear tell a story of the amazing holiday we've had. In a way it will be a shame to wash it all off when we get back to Canberra.

This tree lodged at height in the branches of another tree also tells a story of the flood damage of the last wet season.

We made our way back to our Discovery Camp cabin as the sun was dipping below the horizon. We were met with another distinctive Territory sight along the way - a "controlled burn" at the side of the road - making for a dramatic ride home and an even more spectacular sunset - and a fitting finale to our last day of Outback travel. 

To Katherine and Mataranka

We left our accommodation at Pandanus on Litchfield yesterday morning, stopping for a coffee at the Litchfield Outback Resort on the way out of Batchelor. We were hoping they made their coffees as well as they bar-b-qued their steaks (as Rob had experienced the night before - a real Territory sized helping - along with a pint of Guinness - as you do in the Outback!). 

But we found they made their steaks far better than they made their coffees unfortunately!

Katherine is a bit less than 3 hours drive (250klm) south of Batchelor - on a good road with a 130klm speed limit - but single lane, so the big road trains and the big old RVs can slow you down at times.  Anyway we got to Katherine a bit before midday with a few hours to kill before we could check into our accommodation. We got good advice from the Information Centre and headed straight to the Katherine "Hot Springs" on the banks of the Katherine River and only a 5 minute drive from the centre of town for our first outing here.

Rob took a pic of our hire car (a pretty new MG) parked up against a fence of brilliant flowering bougainvillea  at the "Hot Springs" car park.

I avoided taking a picture with people in it but this was a popular spot at lunchtime - there were dozens of people around enjoying the "hot springs" today (water around 34oC - and croc free!).

We are enjoying some lighter lunches now we're on our own compared to all the gourmet tucker we enjoyed and overfed ourselves with on the Outback Spirit tour.

Afterwards we visited this beautiful, contemporary gallery a little south of town, on the Stuart Highway.

There was an exhibition of work from the Warringarri Art Centre - a collaboration with our own National Gallery of Australia, but I was most taken with this small exhibition of traditional shell dolls representing clan groups of the Groote Archipelago - handcrafted by Anindilyakwa women. The gallery, and the quality of the work in it, out here in Katherine, came as a real surprise to me.

We are very happy with our accommodation - new, architect designed (flood and cyclone proof) cabins at Discovery Park on Gorge Road - a few klms out of town and in a lovely setting with trees around and lots of birdlife.

It was lovely sitting on our little bush verandah last night, with a beer, watching the sun set .......

... and the full moon rise .........

Today, we set out for Mataranka, about an hour and a quarter drive south of Katherine on the Stuart Highway. Mataranka is only a small town - made famous by the novel "We of the Never Never" by Jeannie Gunn. The book - a memoir - is about Jeannie's time at nearby Elsey Station in the early days of the 20th century. I remember reading the book as a young person and talking about it with my dear old Aunty Ivy who loved the book I remember - no doubt because so much of it mirrored her mother's and grandmother's experiences (in outback Queensland) too.

Mataranka has the quirkiest little museum (mostly all outdoors) attached to its tiny public library documenting its early pastoral and wartime history. It cost $3 admission (cash only) - and was the best value $3 of the whole trip I would say!

We drove the short distance then out to the Mataranka Thermal Pool on the Roper River, stopping to take a look at the Elsey Homestead on the way. The building is a replica, built in the 1980s for the film adaptation of the "We of the Never Never" novel. The timbers on this replica homestead are still looking pretty strong although you can see a lot of damage from the recent devastating wet season floods when you look closely.

The Mataranka fan palms, unique to this part of Australia, form a lush cooling forest around the thermal springs of Elsey National Park.

It was like Bondi Beach at the thermal pool today - RV rigs crowding the car park - crowds of people and families all with their pool noodles enjoying the 34oC free flowing water. 

This popular pool is fed continuously by this Rainbow Spring. The water is so crystal clear it looks this distinctive azure blue to the eye - amazing!! It's also not strictly a "thermal pool". The water rises up from a deep underground aquifer and it's heated by the earth's natural temperature (around 340C all year.)

We did a lovely, easy 3klm loop walk past the main thermal pool along the Waterhouse River to "Stevie's Hole".

We enjoyed a picnic lunch at nearby Bitter Springs - a much more open area for swimming, fringed by paperbark and fan palm forests.

Once again Bitter Springs was as crowded as Bondi Beach today (despite my carefully composed photos). There are absolutely no facilities at these hot spring swimming areas so the car parks are chock a block with people in their big RV rig set ups (most with boats) so they can get changed, make lunch, get a drink etc etc and make a day of it by these oasis like swimming holes. 

At least there was one (very smelly) drop toilet at Bitter Springs. The toilet at the Mataranka Springs was a bit more high tech but it was a good distance away from where people were swimming.

We made it back to Katherine by a bit after 4pm this afternoon. Its a no frills kinda town and not one we find inviting to stay awhile. Over half of the population here is Aboriginal but its a town definitely run by the whites. There are security grills up everywhere and a strong police presence. I had to show my ID to a cop when I went shopping for a carton of zero alcohol beer at the BWS in town yesterday. So different to where we've been in Arnhem Land where the Aboriginal population is in the majority, has Native Title of the land, and sets the rules!

Aside from all that ......being in Woolies, surrounded by long legged Aboriginal girls - as black as - all speaking in language loud as you like - is a pretty special and amazing Katherine experience too!