Saturday 19th July

After a really quiet night in the gravel quarry, just outside Pine Creek which is the entry point from the south to Kakadu, we had a relatively short drive of 90 kms to the regional centre of Katherine. Prue took some lovely photos of the sunrise and the moon setting in the west. It was almost magical especially just being the two of us.

The road traffic was wave after wave of caravans, off road trailers and motor homes all going north. Our remarks were that there are more tourists on the road than any locals. It is an amazing sight and I can only assume that there were just as many going south. All the caravan parks in Katherine had their full sign up very early. Luckily, we had booked into the same park we had stayed in several weeks ago.

We arrived in Katherine just over an hour after our departure from our overnight stop. There was only one place we had our mind set on, the Cinema Cafe. It is the only place that has good coffee and good meals. Our first cappuccino since Darwin. It is rare out here to find many cappuccino cafes.

Before we moved after coffee, I went into Repco the get some screws to do some repairs on a chair and also some cigarette lighter fittings to modify a 12 volt extension cord I have made up. This cord is used to run the fridge freezer on the back of the Mazda Bravo when we are overnighting. Also, the cord can be used so I can use the computer outside when we are off power.

Anyway, we then went out on Gorge Road to the Shady Lane Caravan Park and set up our Karavan with its awning up. The site is partly shaded during the day and the temperature is around 30 degrees each day.

In the early evening, we went to another Caravan Park on the opposite side of Katherine to meet some friends of Prue’s, Cher and Peter Wotton, from Sydney. They are on a multi-day tour out of Darwin and stayed the night in a tented chalet. It was only a brief visit as not only did the Wottons have to have dinner but also we needed to get back in time to watch, on television, the Wallabies beat the Springboks 16 – 9 in Perth. On the way back, we saw some of the firework display at the Katherine Show as we drove past.

That was the end of a quiet day for us.