Time to visit the family & tag along on their holiday for a couple of weeks - Katherine NT

As we left Keep River National Park the plan was to meet up with Mat's Aunty & Uncle & cousins & his mates for a couple of weeks as they checked out some of the Territory. We made good time along the Victoria Highway with a quick stop at Timber Creek for an awesome pie, we rolled into Katherine just after lunch. The plan was to grab a few supplies & head down to Mataranka to meet the family. I hit Woolies & Mat went to the bottle shop. As I was waiting in line at the checkout Mat came into find me with a very disappointed look on his face. As he had carried the beer out to the car he had noticed oil splatters all over the front of the camper trailer.  After a check under the car it looked like our transfer case seal had blown again (we had the same thing happen on a trip to Tasmania so he knew the signs).  It was 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon so nothing was open, so we limped into a caravan park to wait until Monday & phoned the family saying we wouldn't make it to Mataranka. 

The next day we stayed at the caravan park as we didn't want to drive the car too far so took advantage of the facilities & got all the washing done, hoping to leave on the Monday. Monday morning rolled around & we were waiting at Toyota at 7.30am when they opened. After some initial "go away we are booked out for the day" they had a look at Ruby. Yes, as we expected the transfer case seal was blown, then came the even worse news they couldn't fit us in to get it fixed for a week & a half, sh!t. After some negotiations we finally got it booked in for Friday morning of that week. They topped up the oil for us & told us to drive back to the caravan park & leave the car there till Friday which suited us as we could run the fridges on 240v power. We then rang our roadside assistance company, who didn't want to honour our claim because the car wasn't staying at Toyota. After many many phone calls & going further up the supervisor line, we finally managed to convince them that it was in the best interests of the car to be parked at the caravan park so our fridges could be run & they finally honoured our claim. So it was then off to a hire car company to pick up our set of wheels for the week, a Camry but at least we could have a look around.

I actually lived in Katherine for 6 months, 7 years ago, so knew there were plenty of things to keep us occupied, even though we were disappointed to miss out on travelling with the family. The family rolled into Katherine from Mataranka on Tuesday morning & decided to stay for the night, we think out of sympathy for us! But it was lovely to catch up & it was also Mats cousin Adams birthday, so we had a nice lunch out & then came back to the caravan park to catch up some more & drink too many beers. We also all decided to do a sunrise cruise at Katherine gorge, so the next day it was up early to get to the boat in time. 

We did the 2 gorge cruise, where you walk between the two gorges & change boats. It was lovely in the early morning with the fog on the water & as the sun came up the colours on the gorge were beautiful. It was over by 9am & we headed back to camp & the family packed up & headed up into Kakadu, it was a bit depressing being stuck at the park, but we definitely didn't want them to delay their holiday because of us & we planned to catch up with them as soon as the car was fixed all going well. That afternoon we headed into town & went for a swim in the hot springs in town.  It was lovely but busy, a great free thing to do in town. 

The next day we decided to check out some of the sights just out of town as we had plenty of kilometres on the hire car. Firstly we went to Cutta Cutta caves about 30km south of Katherine. The tours cost $20 per adult & it's a guided tour, after a short walk you enter into the cave. We were very lucky as we only had 10 people on our tour so we could get lots of photos. These are very interesting caves, you only have access to about 250m of them, but you see lots of different formations along the way. 

Cutta Cutta caves-can you spot the snake skin??

Once we were finished at the caves we ventured further south to Mataranka. We firstly visited Bitter Springs, a lovely blue waterhole that was nice & warm. A great spot, but it was pretty busy, so after a swim we headed out to the other hot springs in the area, the Mataranka thermal pool, again this was lovely, but heavily commercialised. Instead of still being in its nature setting like Bitter Springs, this pool was just like a swimming pool, with everything tiled & concreted. Good for kids but it did take away from the natural beauty of the place. 

Bitter springs above & below

After another swim we made our way to the Territory Manor a restaurant & campground that has free Barramundi feeding twice a day. The Barra were 14 years old & huge, now that is the size Barra you want to catch!! The kids got to feed the big mummas, & it was a great thing to watch. 

We then made our way back to town, did some shopping to get some supplies ready to get out of town once the car was fixed. The next day we were at Toyota at 7.30am & by 2pm Ruby was fixed, thank god, no further issues were found. We went back to camp & packed what we could ready to get out of Katherine early the next day. The family had been into Kakadu & we met them just outside the park at Mary River Wilderness Park, where we stayed for 2 nights. It was a great campsite with plenty of room right on the Mary river. The boys hired a boat for 4 hours one morning, but other than a huge catfish, didn't catch that elusive Barra. It was then off to Shady camp to see if we could rectify that!

Sultana Cake

While we had a free afternoon when we stayed at Bells gorge campground we decided to whip up a sultana cake. This just a basic butter cake with sultanas thrown in. 

Sultana Cake

Ingredients

- 125g of soft butter

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 1/2 cups of self raising flour

- 2 tablespoons of custard powder

- 3/4 cup of milk

- 1/2 cup of sultanas

Directions

- cream the butter & sugar until light & fluffy

- add in the eggs & mix until combined

- add the flour, custard powder & milk & mix until smooth

- add sultanas & mix until distributed

- pour into a lined cake tin

- place in a preheated camp oven on a trivet

- place the camp oven on 1 shovel full of coals & 1/2 a shovel full on top

- bake for about 35-40 mins, check at about 25 mins & adjust coals if needed, you might need some more heat depending on your type of wood

Once cooked allow to cool before icing or serving. 

Deb Cakes

When you have no opportunity to shop for 5 weeks you come to rely on dried & frozen foods. We ran out of fresh potatoes 2 weeks in, so we were on the dehydrated potato (Deb) after that. By El Questro it was time for something different so I decided to make some potato cakes using dehydrated potato. Might sound a little weird but these were very tasty. We had them for dinner with a steak & a tin of veggies & then cooked the rest up for breakfast with bacon, sausages & eggs. Now we are really camping!

Ingredients

- 2 cups of dehydrated potato (we actually use the Edgell brand, you can use Deb)

- 1 cup of milk (we used UHT)

- 3/4 cup of water

- 1 tablespoon of butter

- 3 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese

- salt & pepper

Directions

- in a saucepan place the milk, water, butter, salt & pepper & bring to a simmer. 

- turn off heat & add the dehydrated potato & cheese, stir until thick. 

- allow to cool until cool enough to shape into patties. 

- let the patties firm up in the fridge until you are ready to cook (at least an hour). 

- fry off in a frying pan over a medium heat in some oil of your choice. 

- serve. 

These were crunchy on the outside & fluffy on the inside, the cheese gave them great flavour. 

The cooled potato cakes ready to be cooked above & below

Browning up nicely. 

Yummy, just as good as hash browns. 

Keep River National Park

Keep River national park is just across the NT border & only 50km from Kununurra. It has 2 options for camping. The first campground is about 18km into the park & called Gurrandalng, we pulled in here & it was a very nice campsite set alongside a huge escarpment, it was pretty full with lots of caravans & we knew it would get even busier so we went up a bit further to the second campsite Jarnem 31km in. Jarnem was not as busy with equally good views so we stayed there. It is a really big campsite that has really been wrecked by the use of bollards designating bays to camp in that are tiny & not very well designed. There are ample fire pits but these are in all the wrong places as well, there were 2 pit toilets & a water tank. It could of been a great campsite with a bit more thought. The cost was $3.30 per person per night, so very very cheap, hopefully it will pull our average cost of camping down for the month!!

Our first afternnon & night was really nice & quiet, it was hard to get our body clocks to NT time though as we had gained 1.5 hours. There were only about 5 other camps that first night. During the afternoon hundreds of red tailed black cockatoos came near the campsite, just beautiful. 

The next day we set off on the walk at the campground. A 7.3km loop track. As we moved away from the campsite we were treated to swarms of black cockatoos in the thousands, I have never ever seen so many, it was a bird lovers delight! They were in the trees all around us for almost the whole 7km loop. The walking was easy & we were greeted by some great views. We walked up to the top of a lookout that was just amazing & also completed Nigli gap a gap through the escarpments that had some rock art as well. It was a lovely walk & we really enjoyed it. We were back to camp by lunch & spent the afternoon taking photos of birds & reading. 

That night the camp was a bit busier but not too bad until a family drove in just on dark & camped right next to us. They had 3 kids probably aged 3-6 & wow they drove us nuts. Very loud & they had no discipline while mum & dad shouted at them continuously. They stayed for 2 nights & it really was a real detriment to our stay, it was just constant. 

Black cockatoos

Rainbow bee eater

Northern Rosella

The next day we did one of the other walks up the Keep River itself to an living shelter site where the aboriginals camped during the wet season, it also had some rock art. It was an interesting walk along the rocky banks of the river. We then made our way to the ranger station to look at Cockatoo Lagoon, a lagoon that rarely dries up & becomes a haven for birds, we only spotted a couple of little egrets. We then went to a place called Gingers Hill which has an aboriginal bird catcher on top. They used to hide in it, start a small smoky fire & have a lure on a stick they would use to attract hawks & then catch them, it was pretty cool. 

Cockatoo Lagoon

Hawk catcher

Back to camp & the screaming kids next door & we packed up what we could with the plan to get at least to Katherine the next day. Keep River national park is a great spot to spend a few days, definitely worth a look. 

Kununarra

After taking our time on the Gibb River road we badly needed to resupply at Kununurra. We booked into Hidden valley caravan park for 3 nights to get ourselves sorted. We really like Kununurra it had everything we needed to resupply & lots of things to do around town to keep us occupied. Once we had washed the trailer & car, done the clothes & linen washing, done a meat, grocery & beer shop we checked out a few of the local sights. After we went to a couple of zebra rock places, the rum hootchery, the saddle wood factory & checked out Ivanhoes crossing our 3 days were up. There is lots to do in Kunnunara & it's surrounds & when we come back from the territory we will do Lake Argyle, Diggers Rest & Wyndham. 

Kununarra has a Coles, a butcher, a few servos, target country & some great touristy options. Hidden Valley caravan park was $32 a night, it was okay. The sites were on the small side & it was extremely busy, the amenities were good. We might try somewhere different next time. 

Also we ended up camped just down from Vic & Chris a lovely couple we first met at 80 Mile beach it was great to catch up with them again & discuss our adventurers. 

After Kununurra we were off to Keep River national park on the way to meet up with Mats family, more in our next post. 

Ord river crossing at Kununurra 

Ivanhoes crossing

El Questro Station

Probably the most famous destination on the Gibb River Road, probably because it is now so accessible with bitumen the whole way from Kununurra to the turn off & then only 16km of dirt road to the station. You hear many things about El Questro, that it's fantastic, amazing or on the other hand it's not that great & what is all the fuss about? We were keen to make up our own minds, Mat has been there before as a kid & has very fond memories of camping on the river & catching a Barra! So on the tiny bit of phone reception we had at the lookout at Home Valley we called to book a private river campsite. Luckily they had one left, one of the furtherest from the station itself, which suited us completely. It was only a short run from Home Valley, but we had to get some photos of the famous Penetcost a River crossing, but even so we arrived just before 10am at the station store to check in, the staff we're friendly & helpful & we had been booked into the site Kite (they are all named after birds) on the other side of the Penetecost River, excellent. We found a smallish sized camp site with lots of shade, not great for the solar panels, but right on the river on a decent sized waterhole. We positioned the trailer as best we could to suit the solar panels, but we knew we would struggle with power & that might mean we couldn't stay for as long, we would see how we went.

The famous Pentecost river crossing

Kite campsite

Our private waterhole

 The afternoon was spent soaking up our surroundings & trying to catch the elusive barramundi. We were getting lots of bites but no hook ups, so I switched to a smaller hook to see what was taking our bait & it turns out it was small Sooty Grunter, no Barra, oh well we would keep trying over the next few days. 

Day two at El Questro saw us looking to go to Zebede springs the most famous attraction at El Questro. It is only open for half a day, each day as it is then used for the homestead guests. We drove into the car park at about 9am & it was packed, so we drove straight back out with the intention of coming back later to see if it was less busy. We then decided to go to the Saddleback Ridge lookout near the station, it was a great little drive up some very very steep hills, the view at the top was amazing. We came back down & ventured back to Zebede, it was a bit quieter but still heaps of people. The springs themselves are just beautiful, warm water pools in amongst the rocks & palm trees. It was packed with people & we could only find a spot to sit in two tiny pools were you could only just sit down & weren't covered in much water. We soon left as it was just crap, people were everywhere, definitely not enjoyable. Mats quote was "it's like having a bath with 50 other people you don't know & you get the plug hole end!" It cracked me up because it was so true. 

Saddleback ridge lookout

Zebede springs one quick photo I snapped, it felt strange taking photos of people in their swimmers so I have no decent photos. 

It made us feel a bit flat & disappointed so we decided to cheer ourselves up with a couple of beers & lunch at the steakhouse. Mats prawn baguette was awesome, my barramundi tacos were very average, so again I left disappointed. Back home to camp for some more fishing, relaxing & yet another night sitting around the campfire under the stars.

The next morning we were super excited to check out the hopefully not so busy parts of El Questro. We went down to the Chamberlain gorge for a look, it was beautiful, they run river cruises along here & one was just leaving & you can also hire a boat which we were thinking of doing. 

Chamberlain Gorge

The Homestead

After a look at the gorge & a drive by the elusive El Questro homestead itself (it really does have a spectular view) we headed out towards Explosion Gorge which was just beautiful but they had the track down to the waterhole closed, so we made our way the few kms further to Sandwich waterhole, again just lovely & we thought it would be a great spot for a fish. 

Explosion Gorge, named for the fishing techniques they used to use 

Sandwich waterhole

Despite the very fishy looking waterhole, we barely even got a bite, but it was lovely to spend a couple of hours there & all to ourselves, not another soul around. As we couldn't tempt a Barra we finally gave up & made our way back to Brancos lookout. Again a very steep drive but so worth it, the best lookout at El Questro, you definitely have to go up there. You can see forever & you get views of the Chamberlain & Pentecost rivers & the homestead. 

The view from Bramcos lookout above & below

We could also see below us Brancos waterhole, so we made our way down there for some lunch, another great spot. After lunch we thought we would throw the lines in to try our luck again, but we both got broken off on a snag in the first 5 minutes, that was the end of fishing for the day, so it was back to camp for us. On the way back to camp we passed 3 vehicles, the only cars we had seen all day, just heaven. 

Brancos waterhole

Day four at El Questro & we made the short drive to Emma Gorge. They have a separate restaurant & accommodation at Emma gorge, but it's all part of El Questro. The walk was about 3.2km return & it was very busy. The walk itself was okay, lots of rock climbing & creek crossings to be done & only 1 steep hill to climb just before the waterfall itself. You walk your way along the creek itself, criss crossing as you go, just before the hill is the bluest little waterhole. From there you can hear people shouting & having fun just up the track so we knew we were close. When you finally get to the end it just takes your breath away. Emma gorge waterfall is my favourite so far. It's a large waterhole & with a really high waterfall, there are ferns growing off the walls everywhere & droplets of water raining down. The shouting we thought we heard wasn't shouting but just the noise echoing around the gorge. There were heaps of people at the waterfall but not that many swimming, so we jumped in to take advantage. Oh my god, it was freezing, it made you feel numb it was so cold. We swam over to the right side of the waterhole & there is a hot spring that falls down that side so if you go under the rocks it's like being in a warm shower, heaven. We swam under the waterfall as well, but it was freezing. I just couldn't stop saying WOW, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Unfortunately I didn't get many photos as there were so many people & by the time we got out from our swim the sun was in a really bad spot & I couldn't get any more shots. Oh well I will never forget the place, very special. We trecked our way back out & decide to splurge on lunch at the restaurant. Again a mistake, not great food again & we walked away disappointed after lunch. 

Emma gorge walk in

Waterhole just before the waterfall

Emma gorge above & below

Biggest Praying Mantis I have ever seen

The next day we planned to do El Questro gorge itself & also Moonshine gorge. We decided on El Questro gorge first & set off. This walk again took us up the gorge itself, meandering along the creek & the gorge walls were pretty close together. There was an amazing amount of ferns growing on the walls & it must be were they got the idea of a vertical garden from!! We made it to what they call halfway pool. A huge boulder blocks the gorge & has created a waterhole. You can go on further if you climb over the boulder, but we decided this was enough for us. It was a cool day & Mat didn't want to swim, but I was keen & went in, he soon followed complaining how cold it was! It's only a small pool but it's surprisingly deep near the waterfall & was a great swimming spot. We eventually decided we should head back, heaps of other tourists were turning up, so it was time for us to go. The walk back seemed uneventful until Mat stumbled a bit on the flattest piece of ground we had been on, the whole walk is over rocks, I laughed but shouldn't have as karma soon struck back. I stepped on a palm leaf that made me slip & shoved my foot between two rocks, my other foot hot stuck too & down I went. A very loud swear word came out as I was worried about my camera. I skinned/grazed both knees/shins & hurt one hand, but it wasn't to bad. My camera somehow survived, but my lens cap flew off & we couldn't find it anywhere. I limped my way back to the car, with Mat telling me I shouldn't of laughed at him!! Unfortunately that was the end of our days walk though & we didn't get to do Moonshine gorge. 

Halfway waterhole above & below

I rallied myself & was still able to go out for dinner that night though! It was Friday night & we went to the Swinging Arms bar to watch the live music (played by Chris Matthews, who put on a great show) & to have dinner. Again the food was really terrible, if they can't even get the potato bake right, then there is trouble, this time we complained & got our drinks for free, but were still disappointed. Back to the bar for a couple more drinks & more music. It was finally time to call it a night, so before we left we bought Chris's CDs & turned them on in the car on the drive home. It was a really greet night apart from the food. 

The next day was our last full day at El Questro & we spent it relaxing around the campsite & trying one last fishing attempt with no luck. The next day we were heading into Kununurra for 3 nights to resupply. It had been 5 weeks on the Gibb River Road so we needed everything & also needed to do a big clean up of the car & trailer. El Questro was a really great stop for us & we stayed 6 nights total. There really is heaps to do, from exploring on your own or tours. We still have heaps to see including Moonshine gorge, Champagne springs & Pidgeon Hole lookout. We will definitely be back. Camping in the private campsite cost us $22.40 each per night (we got a 20% discount for staying 4 nights or more) & you also have to pay a $20 wilderness park permit fed as well. So it's not cheap but we thought it was worth it because there is so much to do. We also have to come back to try & catch a damned Barra!!

Camp