Day 21: Mataranka to Katherine

A rain free hot day is forecast for Katherine today with the max temperature expected to reach 33 C. However, the low humidity at this time of the year makes it quite bearable. We will be in Katherine for the next 5 days and the forecast looks pretty similar for the whole period. 

Whilst it was a short drive, it was a long day. We arrived at our caravan park, about 3 km out of Katherine, before 12 noon. It is a large park, and has grass ! 

However, the road off the highway, leading to the park was notv quite what was expected. The road sign said we were headed to the Low Level Nature Park. The road soon narrowed to a one way bridge across a river weir that looked like it had serious flooding potential. 

A very low level  one way bridge across the Katherine River

The site they originally allocated us, was a bit of a shocker, with large tree roots over the area where the van wheels woulds be, making levelling the van a bit of a nightmare. I asked for an alternative site, and despite the stuffing around we are very happy in our new location, with less people, and a bigger site which suits our configuration.

Happy on our new site

Once set up, we headed into the town to get some fresh fruit and veges, something for lunch, and we will need to top up our general provisions before we leave. A BBQ chicken always solves the lunch problem, and we had to wait 5 mins before a fresh batch popped out of the Woolies rotisserie.

Lunch back at the van was a success, fresh BBQ chicken is hard to beat. It is bloody hot, 34 C plus, so the aircon isturnhed on in the van and may run until we leave. 

Our shopping trip into town was only exploratory, and now that we have had lunch, we head back into town after a bit of time finalising our setup. The high priority isctom top up our dwindling supply of meat, and red wine. Fortunately there is a highly rated butcher in town, and BWS seem to have the grog market cornered.

We try the butcher first, buying a few different selections to see how their meat stacks up before we stock up.

Next we went to BWS to top up our alcohol requirements. Attached to the Woolworths Supermarket our normal experience would be just to walk in and buy what we wanted. Alas, we joined a long queue, as every person entering the liquor store needed to provide ID and where they were taking the alcohol to. For us, the police officer was almost embarassed, bot waved us through. The impact of all of this was that the store was almost empty of shoppers, because the screening process took time to screen those eligible to buy. I did feel sorry for the officer who reviewed our ID, and waved us through. There clearly is an issue with alcohol abuse in these areas, but is this the best way to approach it.

Anyway, back at our caravan park, which is out of the  town, all is well.

By late afternoon the temperature was dropping, so I decided to take a walk down to the river near our park which I later find is one of the recommended tourist points to visit. 

The one lane very flood prone river crossing

The turbulence below the weir had attracted a local fisherman

Back at the caravan park, it looks like the Bistro here is attracting a few early customers and the swimming pool looks pretty inviting.

On the way back to our van I did notice the cabins in this caravan park are quite elevated. After my walk to the river I suspect a lot oif trhis park goes under water in the wet season.

The swimming pool looks very inviting, Maybe we will give it a go over the next few daysv once we have sorted out our program. It seems the recents floods have closed some of the attractions.