Yesterday while on the boat cruise they pointed out a lookout from where you can see the river and the gorge, it was still pretty warm when we got off the boat and Jacky was not keen so she agreed to do it first thing today. I think she may have been regretting that decision halfway up these steps

Climbing the stairs to the lookout

Mug shots at Katherine Gorge from the lookout

The view was pretty good although today was cloudy unlike yesterday

After that little bit of exercise we went into Katherine to check out the highlights, the Museum certainly was worthwhile, there was hours of information to be gained by reading all the history of the early pioneers and the World War II years. I certainly was not aware that the Katherine airport at the time was bombed by the Japanese.

Some thing you notice a lot up in the northern parts is the number of kites (bird of prey) there are 4 species of which the whistling kite is the most common. If there is road kill on the road its not crows having a feed, its kites. They are also attracted to any smoke small or large, they just circle waiting for small animals to run from the fire. The local story is that they are known to pick up burning embers, sticks etc and drop them in unburnt areas to flush out prey.

Kites circling the fire in Katherine

We did the circuit of town, we checked out the early crossing of the Katherine River (Knotts Crossing), from there we went out to Springvale Homestead, one of the more successful pioneer stations in Katherine but it was closed to the public and looked like it had been closed for some time. From there we crossed the Low Bridge, the first bridge over the river that is under water each wet season and back into town.

With not much else to see, we head back to camp and into the pool. About 5:30 I headed over for my lesson in Photoshop. They were in one of the small chalets and I left Jacky on the porch chatting with his wife while we sat in air-conditioned comfort and compared photos and went through the basics of Photoshop. There was one ground rule established early and that was the lesson ended at 7:00 sharp as that was when the footy started and he was a very passionate Essendon supporter and rarely missed a game.