Katherine Gorge

We experienced our 1st cruise for our Oz trip today. We've seen the brochures & now we go there as well. too.

We are camped near the gorge entrance. Pretty quiet @ night, however, the day time noise is something I didn't expect. There must be thousands of flying foxes in several trees lining the river & also @ the camp ground. At least we get a decent sleep, til an early alarm clock when the blighters return from feeding. The stench is dreadful & we have to play dodgems just to get to the toilet to avoid bombs from above!!

 We went up to the lookout over the gorge. The walk was steep for 10 mins. Views were amazing of course.

 Along the loop walk along away from the rim, there was plenty of flowering shrubs & trees, like these 2.

The yellow flowers was the only thing left on the branches, so it looked quite pretty.

We took an afternoon cruise, so as to see the late sun on the cliff walls. some of the pics have some glare in them unfortunately. I think I took nearly 100 pics for the 4 hrs we spent moving up & down the river. I eventually eliminated quite a few due to bad quality - or just same, same. Better save some space on the hard drive for the rest of the trip!

 We decided on a 3 gorge trip as well. The river fills completely during floods, but as the dry season progresses, the 13 gorges are completely separated & the only way to the next gorge, is to climb / walk over rocks. All canoe cruising was cancelled for the moment due to there being possibility of salt water crocs further up the river.

 The Katherine River meanders & every turn in the river had another amazing sight.

 High cliff faces.

 Rocky outcrops

 Between gorges 1 & 2, there is some aboriginal rock art dated back to 6000 yrs.

Am just amazed how any thing will grow in the rock crevices. But there's a constant flow of water through the rocks, providing enough moisture for even ferns to grow.

 In the 3rd gorge, we climbed over some rocks to reach a small water fall & have a swim in this rock pool. The water was quite refreshing to chilly!

 I like this cliff face enough to make the pic bigger

This is the end of the line for us. 4th gorge is just around the corner & out of reach for us.

Along the way we had several sightings of 'freshies' - the smaller cousin of the fearsome salt water croc. Fortunately their mouths are too small for humans!!

I love the reflections this pic has. Not many of these I'm afraid as there were many other cruise boats going back as well & were ahead of us.I managed to get this 1. Perfect I think.