Judy & Brian Tour Oz: Katherine NT Museum, Katherine Gorge, dinner cruise, railway, market

The first thing i noticed this morning when i woke up was that it was perfectly quiet, except for the birdsong. I hadn't realised just how much the background drone of the Stuart Highway pervaded into even the back blocks of the caravan park in Darwin, or how often the big jets come roaring overhead. Anyhow, I just found it so much more relaxing. The only other noise you can here in the dead of night is the occasional freight train rumble past in the distance.

Speaking of trains, the Ghan was in town today so just for fun we drove out to the station to have a look - it certainly is one long train. As we drove into the yards, we came cross a group of people walking out toward the main road, which i thought was pretty odd. When we drove out of the station, they had split up into 3 couples, one of whom had two small children with them. One of the couples had towels and I immediately assumed, correctly, that they were off the train and that they were walking to the hot springs. I may be an old woman but its 3pm, its 33 degrees and getting warmer and here are these people wandering along a dusty hot road toward a destination that they really didn't know how to get to and absolutely no idea how far away it was. We went back to the pair with the kids. They had only just made it out to the main road and were slightly built Asians. Someone on the train or at the station had told them it was 15 minute walk to town. It is at least 6km to town and its hot, they have no hats and a single bottle of water. We told them that this was very dangerous, especially for the children as they could easily dehydrate and suffer heatstroke. We were unable to pick them up as we didn't have the room as we had already told the couple heading to the springs that we would give them a lift. We hope they turned back and called a cab. The next pair further on toward town said they were ok and would take a chance so we left them with it. The last pair, with the towels, were waiting for us and gave a lift up to the springs and pointed out that it was 3.5km from where we picked them up and that they ought to not spend a lot of time at the springs if they were to get back in time for the trains departure. Our good deeds done for the day!

Anyhow, our day really started with us heading toward the supermarket, but we got sidetracked by the market in the little park in town, which proved to be 1/2 dozen stalls selling 'food', and about 3 stalls selling other stuff. We then took a little detour for me to have a look at the old railway station built in 1926 and now used by the National Trust. Two rooms are run as a book exchange and the other room has some photos and memorabilia of the good old train days, long since passed into history.

Having got into the mood, we then went out to the Museum proper for another look, as it was supposed to have been changed a bit. The only change I could see was a brand new shed / hanger to house the Gypsy Moth aeroplane used by Dr Clyde Fenton. Its claim to fame is that this is the plane he was using when he started work with the Flying Doctors. He had been private flying doctor for years and this was about his 4th plane, and like all the others, he managed to crash it on more than one occasion. The interesting part is that he sold it way back when for 400 pounds, the museum found it advertised for sale purely by chance and were happy to pay $100,000 for it!

This evening we went up to Nitmiluk National Park (aka Katherine Gorge) and boarded the boat for our sunset dinner cruise. We did this cruise two years ago, and it lived up to our expectations, although this time there were a lot more people and you didn't get that eerie effect of being in the dead quiet and total darkness in the gorge on the way back. But a nice cruise, good company and good food. Long walk back in the dark to the car though. Back to the van safely, looking out for wallabies on the way, to watch the F1 qualies.