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350km south of Darwin, we arrived at Katherine, our first major town in the outback. It is a sleepy laid back place, with a large aboriginal population, a few shops selling didgeridoos and aboriginal art and curios, a big Woolworths (more like a Tesco here), and a good bikeshop!! Sedef suffering from a cold, we stopped here for a couple of days at the excellent Kookaburra YHA hostel, and visited the nearby Katherine Gorge.
We were intending to canoe up the gorge, but were disappointed to hear that this was not possible as the ‘salties’ had entered the system during recent rains and were still at large. Our two options were to either take an exorbitantly priced 2 hour cruise up and down the river, or to do a free hike up the gorge to the beauty spots in the area. We opted for the walk!
Several walks were available – we just went for an easy 3 hour jaunt, which took us up to a beautiful lagoon fed by a waterfall (and safe to swim!). We were quite early so had the whole place to ourselves – an hour later we realised how lucky we were as we passed the lagoon on the way back and found it crammed with people!
