The day Kathryn went to Katherine!!
Trip Start
Oct 05, 2007
1
40
97
Trip End
Oct 04, 2008
Katherine,
Australia
Saturday, February 16, 2008
We then discovered that due to all the frigging rain we couldn't kayak on Kathrine Gorge, or go to the hot springs (flooded), or see the school of the air! We could however walk up a bit of Katherine Gorge so we did that instead, which was pretty we able to look out across the park/reserve and marvell at the collosal size of this country! The following day we hiked a zillion miles out of town to the Katherine museam - never have you seen a more random or big museam about such a small place! It seemed like everyone in Kathrine had been asked to donate whatever scraps or rusting machinery and as many sardine cans they could find!! We then hiked another million miles to the Cycad garden which promised freshly baked cakes...... Shut....bakery probably flooded and killed the gazillion year old Cycads!!
Luckily everyone was incredibly friendly (as they were in Darwin) so all was not dissapointment!! Everyone you meet is very chatty and when you go into stores its like walking into Coln Stores! You end up having a good laugh with the person behind the till - normally about my terrible tan lines!!
It has been very intresting to observe the relationship between Aboriginal people and White Aussies on our travels so far, it feels very them and us. I've not seen a single Aborigninal working and they often hang out in large numbers on the street which can be quite intimidating at times. A lasting image I have in my mind is of an Aboriginal woman on one side of the road swigging at a bottle of wine whilst on the otherside white Aussies sat in a nice bar sipping at their drinks. This is very much representative of the huge economic and cultural differences we have observed since arriving in the Northern Territory. I'm sure not everywhere and everyone is the same but it is what we have seen and led to feel so far and it is sad to see in such a developed country.
Anyway having exhausted all possibilities in Katherine it was time to leave our Luxury room and head on to Alice Springs...bring on the 15 hour bus journey - this is a bloody big country!!!
