Katherine

The modern town of Katherine offers a full range of services to visitors and residents. A breakfast tour by boat was a great way to see Katherine Gorge. On the lower gorge the sun lit up the rock faces and the small white beaches that had been placed “out of bounds” because fresh water crocs were building sand nests there. When we transferred from the lower to the upper gorge we passed rock art galleries, with some paintings high up on the rock faces looking inaccessible to painters! Another boat took us into the upper gorge with steep kombolgie rock faces pressing in on us and patches of rainforest trees clinging to crevices in the rock. Here we were shown the deep pool where the rainbow serpent lives after carving out the gorge and a small colony of bats in a rock crevice with a tiny striped rock snake curled up waiting for night and the chance of a meal as the bats leave their lair. As we return to the first boat a White Faced Heron poses nonchantly for the visitors and as we diembark a Red Winged Parrot presents himself for a photo. For him: just another tour