On the way to Katherine, where we were staying at Nitmiluk National Park and hoping to get a close look at Katherine Gorge.
To get a better look at the gorge from the sky, we booked a scenic helicopter flight with North Horizon Heli Adventures who were excellent. We went up in the tiniest mustering plane with no doors. Luckily our pilot has a 1st place in the cake decorating at the Katherine Show under his belt and 16 years piloting experience.
We both felt very safe even with no doors.
It was a truly amazing way to see the vast landscape as a whole.
Katherine Gorge is made up of 13 sections, each section broken up by rocks (see pic 1 below). Can you see the person swimming in the water hole? Its right at the top of the gorge, so only crocs with mountain climbing gear can get up there.
We landed on a rock a far way down the gorge to have a little look…
If only I had a lion cub with me…. (Tammy, that’s a reference to the Lion King)
Deb! Don’t do it, think about the children!!!
Photos just can’t do it justice.
Below left you can see the kayaks we would have taken into the second gorge… and right is the Nitmiluk area including the caravan park, information centre and tour boats at the jetty.
Deb took this one…. I didn’t even see a waterfall!
Now it’s time to see it by water…
We wandered down to see where our tour would be going from…
… and caught a lovely sunset.
… and took advantage of being without city lights…
Originally we had booked the Kayak tour, but it was cancelled a couple of days ago because just one day after they had finished the survey of the gorge – checking for crocs…. they found one! So they have to start their survey all over again. So, the only tour we could get on was the dawn cruise with breakfast – that’s right – Dawn! We walked down in the dark and caught the sun as it came up.
We were sat with a lovely Swiss family who had seen more of Australia than we had!
They are still trying to find and capture the croc they spotted the other day.
This sandy bank below is a fresh water croc breeding area.
Why the furrowed brow I hear you ask? I asked Deb and she said it was because she knew I was taking her photo and she was trying to look pensive.
We got off the boat for a little walk around and to see some Aboriginal rock art that the guide assured us had been dated back to 10,000 years last Wednesday.
Right after this photo below, I did another pose and through my head back throwing my sunglasses off my head and straight into the water….. they sank. Next time you see a croc here, just check to see if he’s wearing them.
On the way back the sun was rising and I wished I’d had sunnies.
There are red floats in the water in certain places, they are another salty croc thing – apparently they think it is food, so when they are checked, if there are teeth marks in it, that’s a good sign he’s still around.
Our guide spotted a fresh water croc just basking… He was pretty big for a freshy (how would I know? this is the first one I think I’ve seen in the wild)
The subtitles on this video are not actually what the blokes next to me were saying…. but it’s funny, so I thought I’d leave it there. He is actually referring the gnarly marks on the croc’s tail.
It was an awesome trip and the guide, Russell had hilarious banter with great joke delivery.
Nimiluk Tours – highly recommended.
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