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Shaking The Tree 2005
Dear All
Well I have just completed a mini trip from Darwin to Katherine. When I say mini it was still 1000kms driving but along the straight and deadly dull Stuart Highway.
This highway divides Australia in half, stretching from Darwin in the North and Adelaide in the South. This is desolate driving. The road goes on for miles and miles and is bordered only by pandanas, scrubby eculypt and grass. A bend in the road is considered a major event and to come across a road house, is considered, bliss. However, it's saving grace is the beautiful no speed limit sign that spans most of the highway. As long as it is reasonable you can go that fast.
I again hired a car, a Hyundai Getz for $45 per day(19 pounds), however luckily I was upgraded to a Nissan Pulsar. Go Girl Go.
So with the windows wound down, litres of water and some satsumas for company of I set and 300km later without really having to use the brakes or steering wheel I was in Katherine. Katherine is a one street town - with a supermarket, a pub, several bottle shop, a couple of cafes and a cinema. In most of Australia you don't really see Aborginals - except in the Northern Territory, where in places like Katherine they hang around pubs and bottle shops in there little black fella and black woman groups. Quite often they are fighting and shouting fuelled by the alcohol. This can be quite intimidating and not typical of every Aboroginal, but unfortunately this is the overwhelming image you walk away with from a place like Katherine.
Oh there are also the vast number of white fellas wearing hooped earrings, no shoes and singlets.... But that is Top End Style ! The number plates in the motel read "AH NUTS" "GO NUTS" "FOXIE" - I think you get the picture.
Cars in the Northern Territory are either
A. Huge 4 wheel drives with shiny chrome and tinted windows or
B. clapped out old bangers that look like they have been held together with bluetack and a prayer or
C. Road Trains - 4 articulated lorry lengths and very scary when they pass you at 120kms/hour. They could be full of cattle, Petrol - you name it they transport it.
Well I booked myself on a trip to Katherine Gorge and settled into my motel room to watch the cricket on SBS. What a delight to finally see the Australians struggle, I really want to see the TV coverage if they lose the ashes....
The tour was great and Katherine Gorge was as beautiful as I remember. The first time I was here some 15 years ago I canoed up the gorge with Angus. This time I was not so brave but I did cruise up the first 3 gorges. Huge towering walls of red sandstone, emerald green water, still except for the ripples from the cooling breeze.
Aboriginal rock art showing animals and food sources, dating back 12,000years !
There was a series of walks totalling 4km between gorges and boats, which tested the ankle strength at times, but I am glad to say it passed with flying colours.
The Freshwater crocs remained well hidden but we did see a Northern Snappy Turtle and a jumping Barramundi! Perfect.... Although the cossie was on I did not venture in for a swim. They did not have an Edwardian changing room to wheel down to the waters edge, and by the sounds of the yelps of fully grown men it was mighty cold in that water!
I also visited Mataranka - Home of "We of the Never Never". Another 100km further down the Stuart Highway this really was a one street one post office, small museum and a cafe kinds of town. But the exhibition really bought home how the early settlers struggled in this environment and how poorly the native Aboriginals were treated, taken from their families and forced to work for food and lodgings only!
On the way back I stopped at Cutta Cutta Caves, which means Caves of many stars. These tropical caves are cool and dry for 8 months of the year and house snakes and bats. Then as the wet season approaches it gets wet just like the caves at home. Thousands and thousands of silica crystals glisten in the torch light just like stars - hence the name. We did not come across any snakes, but spotted a snake skin over 2 metres in length. I am so glad we did not meet the original owner!
So the drive back was a little more adventurous with a huge bush fire burning in the not so distant horizon. You get used to seeing breaks in the normal scrub, where the browns and greys are replaced with the black and russet of scorched scrub. But to see a black cloud looming in front of you is a tad dauting, I can tell you. The are fills with the smell of a thousand bonfires, and although this is a way of life in the outback it makes you think! My favourite road sign ever is there to stop these fires being started accidently - " We like our lizards frilled not grilled !!!'
A twister also appear from nowhere in the scrub beside me. A tall column of brown dust swirling and rising tens of metres into the air.
And finally a wallaby - waiting until you are almost level with him before leaping across the road. Your heart beats faster and you thank god there are no other cars around as you brake to miss him.... Thankfully Wallaby and Nissan Pulsar were both unharmed ! When you drive especially towards the latter part of the day, you are ever watchful that emus and kangaroos or camels do not cross your paths... so you scan the roadside for any movement and try to be at your destination before dusk.
Well I am back in Darwin, in another hostel, and waiting for my flight to the cold and Adelaide on Friday. I will while away my hours by reading, soaking up the sun (trying to even out the fact that my right side is considerably browner than my left side, due to the driving). The Darwin festival is on so I might catch some indigenous dancing or an australian movie at the deckchair cinema. Ain't life tough....
Thanks for all your messages and keep them coming.... they keep me going.....
I will upload the pictures of Katherine soon
Love
Lynne
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