A relaxing day today. After loosing a lure to a barramundi in the Roper river yesterday evening, the boys tried their luck at fishing again today. It ended when Kaidan declared "let's face it Dad - we're crap fishermen". This campsite was a good find, you can hire canoes and there are pontoons in the swimming area on the river. Too lazy to canoe in the heat today but we all went for a swim in the Roper river which was lovely and refreshing. Just a little conce...

We left Katherine this morning and arrived at Mataranka in time to see the Barra feeding at Territory Manor. The man had trained the Barramundi to eat pilchards from his hand or from a rod. The Barramundi were up to 1.2m long. We also had a beautiful well-priced lunch at Territory Manor. In the afternoon we went for a swim at Bitter Springs thermal pool (photo). It is 34oC, we snorkeled down the pool, about 200m and swam back against the current. It was well wo...

Today is Kaidan's 9th birthday. Yesterday we had a fairly quiet day around the Shady Lane CP and went into Katherine Hot Springs, which are warm and simple. This morning we visited the Katherine School of the air - it was very interesting. In the afternoon we went on a 3 Gorge cruise through Nitmulik (aka Katherine Gorge). It went for 4 hours and included a short walk between gorges, aboriginal art and a swim in the river. We saw lots of freshwater crocs and...

This morning we packed up camp and headed for Katherine, detouring to Gunlom on the way. The waterfall came off the escarpment into a large clear pool. We all swam out to beneath the falls. I feel more of an appreciation for Kakadu after spending a few days there. The birdlife was varied, we saw a snake each day in the wild and the scenery was spectacular in some areas. It is obviously a very different place at different times of the year and we were quite disapp...

Today we drove down to the Jim Jim Falls. We had been warned that it would be very busy as it was the first day of the season and the map said to allow 2 hours to travel the 4wd road. Well, we arrived at the Jim Jim falls in less than 1 hr, seeing only 1 other car on the way and staying in 2wd the entire road! The 1km walk to the falls was beautiful and fun, with lots of rock hopping. There were small sandy beach areas on the river edge near the base of the fal...