Katherine..... still

Monday 14 May

A quiet morning to just potter around, Brian to download some photos and catch up on whatever he does on the computer and finish my book. There is a nice breeze today so it doesn’t feel quite so hot especially sitting outside under the awning in the shade of the trees. We dragged ourselves away and headed for Katherine Hot Springs. What a nice surprise. A lovely creek that meanders through the pandanus trees with at least four or five different areas of warm pools that you can float, swim or just splash about. The last pool is created by the water flowing fairly fast over a small weir and  dropping into a deepish hole that creates lots of bubbles just like in a spa. Floating around here was about as active as we got today. This evening we were booked on a sunset dinner cruise through Katherine Gorge. We basically cruised the same areas as yesterday in the first two gorges but cruising late in the afternoon with the sun setting was fantastic. Dinner was to be held when we arrived back in the first gorge but on a different boat than the one we went up on. Well I certainly wasn’t expecting white tablecloths and flowers on the table but that was what we had. There was only ten of us for dinner and we were greeted with champagne with native hibiscus and shown to our tables. We cruised to a sheltered spot for sunset and entrees. The chef cooked on a BBQ onboard and presented us with kangaroo, crocodile and fillet steak skewers and salad. Another spot for our barramundi main but first a little lemon sorbet to cleanse the pallet. The stars started to appear as the sky got darker and it is almost impossible to describe the density and volume of the stars as they appeared. You not only felt that you could touch them, they were just everywhere you looked. After a dessert of coconut and ginger Broulee, the spotlight scanned the shore but no crocs again today. The lights were turned off so we could see even more stars and hard to imagine but you could. I’m sure the southern cross is only supposed to have five stars. I’m sure there was at least seven. It was a very beautiful and peaceful way to spend an evening. We slowly cruised back to the jetty and just to add icing to the cake, when we alighted, the park was full of little wallabies grazing and being very cute.

Snap of the Day

Sunset. Katherine Gorge. Katherine, NT