Darwin trip

I've been up to Darwin a few times now, and it's a really cool little city.

I had a mate, Limmy, who was doing a four-month stint up here as a physio. To farewell him we had a bit of a lads weekend in Darwin.

We drove up on Friday after work, but there will be no photos of our activities here. Needless to say it was a good night.

It was, however, very difficult to get up in time to make the 7am fishing charter we had booked. The only saving grace was that we knew they were going to have bacon and egg rolls for us on arrival... gold. It was a half day trip, just around Darwin harbour.

It was a slow start, and the other fellas were pulling them up in dribs and drabs while I looked on forlornly. But soon, it was on.

Now much to Limmy's disgust, I caught the biggest fish of the day. It was a beautiful snapper. But Limmy, being a little bit petty, decided to crop the photo. Okay, so it's not a monster or anything, but catching anything is fun.

I caught five I think in all, and the other fellas caught a fair few too. We were staying at a backpackers right in town which had a barbecue, and decided to cook up the fillets for tea. So while all the other backpackers were eating tinned soup and sausages, we cooked up fresh fish marinated in chilli and garlic, asian greens stir fried on the barbecue, which actually worked really well, and chips.

It was awesome.

One the way back we decided to go via Litchfield National Park, which is maybe 80 kilometres off the highway back to Katherine.

We went to Florence Falls, which is the closest attraction. You have to walk down a heap of steps to get there, but this is the view from the lookout at the top.

It was a beautiful spot to swim, and we managed to climb up under the waterfall. There was also a great ledge to jump off into the pool. Apparently that's a bit of a boy thing to do, but it's always so much fun!

We stopped quickly at the magnetic termite mounds on the way out. This photo doesn't show it too clearly, but they're only perhaps 10 or 20 centimetres thick, and they all line up almost exactly north to south. If you think about it, it's pretty freaky that termites know how to do that. But apparently it's about the direction of the wind in the valley that the termites live in, and this is the most aerodynamic way to build them. Pretty clever.
So all in all, a pretty darn good weekend.

Assorted waterholes

Okay, I'm a bad blogger. It's been a long, long time since I've posted anything.

But a lot has been going on in that time. I'm trying to make the most of the dry season both for work and play. The wet officially begins in November, but could be earlier, and once that happens I won't be able to get to a lot of places. So I'm trying to do a lot of trips for work and a bit of hiking and camping. More on that in later posts... and there will be later posts!

For now, here are a few photos I took way back at Easter. This is Edith Falls, which is about 40 kilometres north of Katherine. I had a really great picnic here, and it's a great spot to swim. Although the local Jaowyn people won't swim here, as they believe it's the resting place of a creation creature.

Apparently if pregnant women swim here they have babies that have problems with their breathing and bones. I have it on good authority that one baby that was conceived in this pool (let's not think about that) was born with cystic fibrosis... which affects lungs and bones.

This photo is Southern Rockhole, near the Gorge. It is magic. It's about a four kilometre walk to get there, but so, so worth it. You can swim in this pool, or up above. There's a pretty standard warning that while rangers do a pretty thorough check for salt water crocs and have really good procedures in place, they can't guarantee that they're in certain places.

This is one of those places. But they'd have to get over a hell of a lot of rocks which they don't like to do, and no one has ever had any trouble.

Plus it's a really great place to swim.
The dry season is progressing, and Southern Rockhole has now stopped flowing. Edith Falls is still going though, so still some great places to swim.

I'm constantly amazed at how beautiful the swimming spots are up here.

More soon, I promise.

Kununurra trip

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything.

Yes, part of it is laziness, but mostly it's that I've been quite busy and having too much fun!!

I've been doing some pretty cool stuff, but I won't talk about it all in one go. But I will put more stuff up here soon!

About a month ago I had the opportunity to go to Kununurra in Western Australia for work. It's just over the border into Western Australia, and the home of my closest rural reporter colleague. It's about 500 kilometres from Katherine.

So I went for work, but there was also plenty of time to see a bit of the Kimberley and have fun!

The reporter in Kununurra, Matt, took me to this amazing waterhole. This is the top of it, we had to walk down this path to the bottom.

But it was totally worth it. The water was really, really warm, to the point where it was almost uncomfortable, but it was such a beautiful spot for a swim.

Plus it had a rope swing!!

On the way back to Katherine we stopped in at Lake Argyle, which is the largest fresh water body in Australia. It's a massive dam, except the dam wall isn't actually that big, it's just very well placed. It's the dam for the Ord Irrigation Scheme, which was a big deal back in the 70s and is currently being extended. I don't think it ever quite caught on like the planners had hoped, but it's a lot of water!! Apparently during the wet season (it was a really big one this year) there was one million litres of water a second going over the spillway. That's just amazing.

I was in Kununurra for two nights, and it was my first time to WA! It was a pretty great trip, and I'm sure we did more stuff that I can't think of right now (plus a bit of work).

Will put more stuff up soon.