Have you been to Katherine?we've been to Katherine

One of the things we noticed in the Northern Territory is that people here love to personalise their car number (rego) plates, which is fine but why on earth would you chose to have any of the choices we photographed as your number plate? This did however give us a great game to play while on the road or just parking. Up the East Coast we amused ourselves by trying to find the most ridiculous slogon on a Wicked camper van. They are a company who provide cheap camper vans but you pay the price by having to drive around in a vehicle that could have anything from song lyrics to filthy smut scribbled all across the side panel/boot! Some people had even taped over theirs they were that bad. The Wicked "designs" ranged from "all you need is love" to "don't hop in a hot bath if you need a poo". i don't get it but i am not going to try it in case they have a point. Lucia had the misfortune of hiring a dodgy Wicked Camper Van, so Mrs Greencheese if you can dare to admit as much, please share with us the no doubt tasteful scribing on your vehicle...

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It felt a little odd knowing we would only meet new people for a day or 2 at a time, being back on the road, and having the inevitable delight of eating $2 noodles and tinned soup for weeks on end. Not to mention the fact that once again we would only have each other for company. However, with the birthday vodka still intact this was made a little more bearable :)

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And so to Katherine a small town where loud music is played over a pa sytem in the streets, and its not even good music believe me, unless you are fans of celine dion or chris de burgh. Nope not sure the indigenous people are keen on it either and if I had to hear it everyday on my way to school, work or the bus stop to hang out with my mates & play cards I too would have a drinking problem.

The reason people go to Katherine is not because of its musical streets but because it has a delightful national park and stunning gorge. Being a pair of cheap skates we opted not to indulge in a 6 hour canoe trip and decided a walk would be just as lovely, half the price and definitely not as hard work. So fully equiped with enough water to flood a small village (including a few bottles of frozen water as this was the only way to keep everything else cool and guaranteed a nice cold drink after lunch) we headed into the bush. The walk sounded lovely on paper but the disappointment of reality kicked in pretty quickly. Butterfly gorge named because of its abundance of butterflys seemed empty of its inhabitants and gave course for me to say only once my best new dutch phrase 'kaik ein flinder'. At last a relevant opportunity to say'look a butterfly'. I knew it was only a matter of time. The marked tracks were heaps of broken brick and rubble. Not the easiest to walk on especially as it undulated at steep gradients. We finally saw the gorge, after about 100 miles of walking through a sweltering hot war zone with very little to see, except rocks and tall itchy grass on all sides, and even then we had to scale a small cliff face to really see it. Right well that's the gorge back the way we came folks. Oh the joy.  The army sings to distract itself from the hardships of marching and we decided we needed to take action. Regrettably for me, Chris thought this would be the ideal time to teach me my times tables and would not tolerate any mistakes. Luckily, since the Darwin cup race day I knew that 4 coronas at $7 each cost $28. This however only gave me the answer to 4x7 and 7x4, so it went on for quite some time and only in the last 3k was it my turn to teach Chris something of value. I am proud to say he can now ask for a room with a bath for 1 night, in spanish. Ah yes knowledge is power my friends, knowledge is power.

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