No rush today, the gorge cruise was booked for 11 am, so we stayed in bed to nearly 7:30. It helps now that the sun is not rising until nearly 7:00 am. Then it was bacon and eggs for breakfast and we headed down to the boat ramp for the cruise.

Katherine Gorge

The gorge system here consists of 13 gorges of which they have tour boats in 3. Katherine Gorge is the second gorge in the tour, the cliffs were quite spectacular and there was still plenty of water flowing in the river. The wet season water marks gives you some idea of the vast amounts of water that flow through the gorges.

At the end of each gorge there was a set of rapids that the boat could not traverse so there was a short walk to the next gorge where you boarded another boat. The question of course was asked “How do you get the boats into the gorges in the first place”. In the wet season as the water level rises and the water completely covers the rapids the boats are brought back to the main boat ramp, just before the wet season finished they use a large power boat to tow the tour boats back up to their moorings in the gorges. This power boat is also used for charters in the wet season for those thrill seekers who want to get wet as they power upstream against the raging river flows.

Katherine Gorge

Katherine Gorge was also our first experience of fruit bats, they have a resident colony of close to 30,000 and they all roost in the trees along the river, fortunately its quite a distance from the camp grounds because the noise is continuous even when they are supposed to be sleeping.

There is barely a branch free to hang out on

It was still pretty warm when we arrived back at camp and there was a very attractive pool at the campground, mind you it took a couple of hours to get Jacky out of the book she was reading but we finally got in the water around 5:30. We were just getting out and about to head back to cook some tea when some guy picks up a guitar and starts singing in a voice very similar to John Williamson. So we hung around a little longer and as it got dark the idea of cooking tea receded as the smells from the poolside kiosk wafted over the pool. They were selling scotch fillet steaks with salad for $28, it didn’t take long for Jacky to twist my arm and tea was ordered. Mind you the backpacker cooking the steaks didn’t seem to understand medium-rare, we had to keep the fork in them to keep them on the plate.

The pool at Katherine Gorge Campgrounds (its a hard life)

Never the less it was a great evening by the pool listening to a lot of classic aussie songs. We were chatting to a couple next to us who were from Broome, he was a retired professional photographer and after a while I managed to invite myself over to their camp for a lesson in Photoshop and some professional evaluation of my photos.