Toowoomba to Perth: Section 6

Days Fourteen to Eighteen: Katherine and Nitmiluk

I have so many exclamations and no way to create a coherent description of Nitmiluk: I’ll tell you what I did say “Wow, that’s beautiful” “Oh my” “Awesome” “Incredible” “Oh cool” “Gawd, look at that!”.

For those who have visited the latter, in terms of environment the Gorge is a lot like Carnarvon Gorge. Sparse tropical vegetation including tall palms, local eucalypt varieties, the bright yellow waxflowered kapok, scarlet-flowered kurrajong, strangler figs, speargrasses, Sturt’s desert rose, abundant birdlife including the ever-circling kites and eagles, and long stretches of bedrock upon which to roll ankles and break arches… and footwear if you don’t have the right sort.

Great stuff for my still gaspingly painful foot which I determined to completely ignore until I couldn’t walk anymore. I have very good Ignoring powers, and on that particular day I walked 14km over wobbly bedrock, sand, and shale, slipped, clambered and climbed over treeroots, limbs and the larger limestone rockfalls that tumble through the minor crevices leading down to the Katherine River.

Reaching the sandy cove that was my destination I was not alone, catching the fleeting image of a figure sans accoutrements clutching clothing to fore-person and scrambling up the sloped sand.

Tactfully I walked toward another part of the cove and saw a second (attired) person dive into the deep green waters of the river and swim in my direction. After surveying the view and no, not just the swimmer, for a short while I turned to leave.

As I did so, Second Person emerged from the undergrowth.

“Don’t let me stop you” I called to him.

“What?” he yelled

I repeated my greeting and he came toward me. “What is it?” he said.

“Don’t bother about me, I’ll leave you to it” I grinned.

“No, it’s ok” he said. Second Person turned out to be a German backpacker called Tom. Brown as a coffee bean, our Tom looked like he was exercising to its fullest potential his opportunity to adopt the kind of vagabond lifestyle and personal care choices that would horrify his mother.

Our Tom has been travelling throughout Australia for quite some time and was due to leave at the end of July for SE Asia, the Middle East and then home. After quite a long chat during which I discovered that Tom is the quintessential “man of the moment” such that although he snorkelled at Exmouth, buggered if he knew whether it was Ningaloo or not. “oh, Ningaloo” he smiled “that’s a very complicated name, why should I try to remember something so difficult”.

First Person soon appeared and shouted something in German to Tom. Tom shouted back, in German. Then his friend left, outfitted entirely in wet orange boardies and thongs. Tom explained that his friend was going to another part of the Gorge to swim.

“he’s going to walk all that way like that?” I gasped. “just in thongs???!!”

True to form, Tom shrugged and after a few more pleasantries we parted ways, only to meet up shortly thereafter as I was simultaneously climbing over rocks and peering through the viewfinder of my camera in an effort to find a kapok flower’s best angle.

Tom asked me if I was planning to go to another rock pool at the Gorge. I said I was, and we ended up spending the day as travelling companions.

Poor Tom, he asked me questions and I talked his ear off. We talked a lot about Aboriginal people, the sliced and diced history and significant information that I could give him, and the complexity of the problems for Aboriginal people. Don’t mistake me, I never told him I had the Answer, or any answers at all. We ended up deciding there were no answers that we knew of and whatever the solutions, they would take a long time to work.

Tom left school early, did an apprenticeship as an optometrist, discovered the purpose of a complete education and decided to travel.

Tom loves Australia and it’s bigness, but he really misses being able to ride his bike the 2km between towns and when he is hungry, picking fresh fruits from the trees lining the roads.

He has a 21 year old sister who is into horses and doesn’t travel because her two horses died and their parents bought her a foal as compensation. “The foal is her life” Tom assured me.

His dad is the Optometrist who took pity on an errant teen, and his mum stays at home. He is going to go to college when he gets back to Germany.

Tom knows all about HomeBrand: spaghetti and sauce is currently his staple diet. He wanted to have $150 for when he was in Darwin so that he could have BBQ every day. He wants to eat as much meat as possible in Darwin because there are not so many varieties in Germany as in Australia and those you can buy are mostly marinated.

“Dodgy meat then?” I asked.

“I would say so”.

Despite it being his major food group in Germany, no cheese whilst in Oz for that little black duck – “No, it’s too expensive in Australia”.

We sat and swam at the second rockhole, and saw First Person sunning himself at one of the lookout points. Again First Person did not say hello to me, but spoke in German to Tom.

“Doesn’t he know English?”

“Yes, I don’t know why he doesn’t speak in English. It’s strange.”

“Is he upset because you’re hanging out with me and not him?”

“No, it’s good for us to have some time to do our own thing. I was with another group and there was a German guy and he was really into the group thing. Everything as a group. It got really annoying, so this works ok.” They met in Tasmania when they both did a Cradle Mountain walk so they are just travelling companions, not mates as such. It’s a partnership of convenience, no strings, simple.

First Person appeared at Second Gorge rock pool some time after we got there, swam about for a bit and then dived into the water. Tom told me he was going to swim back to the campsite.

“I think it’s a long way to the campsite” he mused. I just shook my head. We had already talked about the stupid things people do when they don’t appreciate the dangers of the Australian environment and Tom had shared his Spectacularly Stupid moment: 24 hours after arriving in Australia, a friend who was already in Darwin insisted on taking him to Katherine Gorge. This was in November – the Build Up, Go Troppo and Mango Madness season.

The jetlagged and unacclimatised Tom was dragged 6km to the rockhole in the middle of the steaming, sweltering, drippingly humid, 50°C day. I shook my head when he told me that too.

Tom and I sat and swam and floated and lingered and climbed around the granite protrusions for a while. Eventually another, middle aged couple appeared, dropped their gear near the water’s edge and started to strip. To everyone’s great relief, bathers appeared underneath the hiking clothes and when they were suitably undressed, they both looked at each other and began a conversation in a foreign tongue.

Whilst these two were talking a trio of towel-toting, sun-browned women appeared and re-enacted the couples’ scene. The middle-aged women tiptoed tentatively to the water’s edge and put her foot in.

“It’s not cold, it’s lovely” I called.

They looked at me.

“…and don’t worry, the crocs’ll get them three first” I nodded toward the younger girls.

The man said “crocs?!” and the woman pulled her foot quickly from the water.

“Yeah sure, the girls are younger meat, much more tender, better meal by far”

“Are there crocodiles here?” asked the woman, now about 12 feet back from the water’s edge. The man hadn’t moved, of course.

“Well, I’ve swum here today and he…” I waved my head to Tom who was perched in a tree root near the water’s edge reading his book “has been swimming here longer than me today and yesterday. Only saw one, and it went after the kids. Slower swimmers, more prone to panic, you know…”

One of the girls came toward us and asked what I had said.

The man spoke to her in the same foreign language and she spoke to her friends. I presume the story was being repeated. The girls paused in their act of undressing just as some young men around their age appeared.

Again it was too easy, I gave in “naw, just kidding with ya” I said. “Don’t bother about crocs, here they’re freshwater and not aggressive in the way the salties are. None have been seen here recently and they’ll only attack if they feel they are being directly threatened, otherwise they’ll tend to stay away.”

I wasn’t just making this up off the top of my hat; I’d cleared up my own concerns about the family Crocodylidae through a conversation I had with the Rangers before leaving for my own walk that day.

I went over to where Tom was sitting and he glanced at our company “oh no, Germans”.

“What’s up? I thought you’d be happy to speak to someone in your own tongue”

“No way, I can do that at home. I want to learn English! Anyway, look at them, they’re just silly. It makes me laugh, watching them worry about something so stupid.”

“Like what?”

“Like the crocodiles. Look, they won’t get into the water now. That’s what they’re talking about.”

Sure enough, a group conference being held with much gesticulation and nodding toward the water. Tom sighed, “I better go and say hello.”

He did, and when he came back, the middle-aged man had jumped into the water and was floating toward the middle of the river on his back. He called out to the others, still hovering at the water’s edge. Tom assured me they were expecting the man to be the unwitting participant in a Death-roll any moment, and he was teasing them about it.

“God what a nightmare” he muttered

“Huh?”

“Five Germans in a car together. Anyway, let’s get out of here, it’s getting too crowded.”

We walked back to his car, chatting about this and that, including the bold kangaroo that helped itself to his bread yesterday. Tom resolved the problem by giving the kangaroo a raw potato. I expressed my concern – Tom then became worried that he had perpetrated manslaughter against one of Australia's icons. I disagreed, suggesting instead that "it probably wasn't good for the poor bugger. Would have given him a nasty belly ache" to which Tom grinned, well pleased with his unwitting revenge of the marsupial's theft of his scarce supplies.

We parted ways, knowing that such are the fleeting and oftentimes anonymous, yet fulfilling and precious friendships made during travel.

When he left me I hobbled over to my car and immediately released my foot and a groan. The blasted thing had swollen to three times it’s normal size due both to heat and injury. Thongs were but a grab into my hiking pack and were donned post-haste. The relief was like another dip in the cool waters of the Katherine River.

Putting things into their places in the car – other members of Wright-Eayrs heritage will appreciate this sensibility; everything has it’s specific place so that it all fits and is at hand according to frequency and urgency of use – I left.

Returning to the campsite, a Superman-style change of clothes and I was lurching like the Hunchback of some fame toward the hot springs for a soak. Under gathering darkness I slipped my aching self into the temperate bubbles. Leaning back on some rocks, I listened to the chirrup of crickets and the trill of the fruit-bats and microbats I could see swooping above me as I stared upward at the twilight silhouettes of pandanas plants, Darwin box, and Bloodwood and the twinkling stars.

The next day I resolved to do some blogging but couldn’t resign myself to an entire day at the computer, so I decided to also visit the Cutta Cutta caves. These are a local and much poorer version of the Yallingup Caves. In summary, don’t bother.

A quiet day at the caravan park after the visit to the caves allowed me to arise ready for another go at the Gorge.

This day I did a much longer walk, 20km in total. I visited what is known as the Lily Pond and is the third bend in the gorge or Third Gorge. Indeed, about 3km from the end point of the walk, I did pass some billabongs complete with frogs, turtles and a small stock of waterlilies. I suppose they are not in season…

The end 2.5km of the walk was awesome, mainly for the fact that it required climbing down the face of the Gorge. At the end of the climb down one could walk back into a wide grotto and there see a waterfall cascading from the tabletop. You may also swim in the large freshwater pool that has formed at the bottom of the falls and a couple who had followed me did just this. This pool, the actual Lily Pond as I understand it, emptied via a series of smaller falls into the greater Gorge. At the termination of the rivulet caused by the Lily Pond’s overflow was small sandy cove shaded by a couple of large mangroves. Realising that the couple probably wanted their space, and also personally preferring to swim in the River proper, I took my rest at this cove.

Good thing, it gave me more chances to practice my cheekiness. Sea kayaks passed me in numbers, rowers waving hello in the general friendliness that exudes from people on holidays.

“Did you hike down to there?” someone called

“Yeah, yesterday” I called back

A few more passed without comment. I saw them return shortly; also matched was their silence.

A solo rower and I called “It’s crap that way”

“What?”

“I say, it’s crap that way. Must be, everyone keeps coming back again”

He took me seriously.

Honestly, how could anyone be paddling down the middle of the great and glorious Katherine Gorge, taking in its beauty and majesty first hand and believe that it was going to be crap in any place at all?

Eventually, a trio of paddlers decided that my spot would be theirs too which I took as my signal for flight; take one paper-white, skinny, whingeing pommy lad, his rubenesque girlfriend flapping and flopping about as she capsized her pink-faced self into the water, and their seemingly quite sensible and observably patient Dutch friend, yours truly looking to take in the (Howz the) serenity and you have a crowd.

As is usually the way of these things, the way back (up) the Gorge face was easier than the way down. I always find up to be easier anyway – the whole “staring death in the face” thing gets to me. Girl’s blouse that I am.

The walk back though was pretty darn tough. It was 40°C in the Gorge as I was walking back and my foot was doing it’s thing which seriously interrupted my stride and my pace. I could understand how the Hunchback got fat.

Add to the heat and my lurching perambulation the pain in my foot with a nag factor akin to a toddler in a toystore and the recent development of astronaut legs (the direct result of days doing with nothing more taxing than work the clutch and accelerator pedals) that were disgracefully wobbly after my relatively short hike. Outcome --> knackered.

For shame, I had to stop and rest at the ½ way signpost!! Bloody foot.

Nevermind, nothing could douse my jubilation after a second and equally fulfilling day at Nitmiluk, sealing forever my love for Gorge country.

Upon arriving at my campsite, the people next door to me – a kindly middle-aged couple who used to operate 4WD tours from NSW to Central Australia destinations – asked me about my day. I beamed at them and said it had been fantastic, just like the first time.

I then asked them how their boat cruise up the Katherine had fared.

“We didn’t go” She smiled at me ruefully. I raised my eyebrows. He went over to their kettle, made a cup of tea and sat down in his folding chair behind their camper.

“His sister, she and her husband are in a caravan a few sites up…, she had a stroke as she was getting on the boat. She just stopped as she was stepping up to get onto it, and suddenly she didn’t know who she was, where she was, nothing. She’s in Darwin Hospital now.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. What does that mean for you?”

“I tell you one thing” She leaned toward me for emphasis “whatever you want to do, do it now. Because you never know.”

I nodded.

“We just have to wait and see. Things will turn out, one way or another. We are waiting to hear from the hospital; we probably have to go to Darwin but we don’t know. She could be ok. We don’t know….” She shook her head, looking at me.

“How is he?” I nodded toward her husband.

“Philosophical. She has been sick for a while, it’s not completely unexpected. Still… She’s only 57…” She looked at Him.

Turning back to me she said “live your life now, don’t wait. I had breast cancer a few years ago, and I realised that I have each day I’m alive and I can’t waste any of them. Whatever you want to do, do it, because you never know what could happen.”

“Well,” I rejoined, “before I left for this trip, a lot of people told me that they had always wanted to do what I’m doing. I will never have to have that conversation.”

She nodded, and I wished her and her husband my concerns and that things worked out in whatever way was best for everyone. She retired to her cup of tea with Him and they began murmured conversation that included frequent checks of their mobile phones.

I went about my evening rituals, thinking that the people I had met so far were, without exception, kind, warm, caring, generous, companionable, genuinely wonderful people. And that I had made the right choice to embark on this journey, despite my everpresent concerns for the wellbeing of my Nanna.