The Top End: Day 4

Day 4 started with a Nitmiluk sunrise, then took us to Nitmiluk Gorge and Katherine Hot Springs. We hit up Edith Falls next, and ended at camp in Litchfield National Park.

Sunrise Reflections

My alarm started my day bright and early at 5:30, leaving me enough time to put in my contacts and brush my teeth before meeting up with the gang to make the short hike to our sunrise viewing spot. The sky was starting to turn light, but we could still see the stars. I have yet to see the Southern Cross constellation, but I am determined!

We spent the next 45 minutes in almost complete silence, and I thought about how SMALL I am in the scheme of the universe. I don’t know about you, but I find a real sense of comfort in knowing that if I were to die tomorrow, the world would continue. It’s liberating because I can find my own meaning in life. I’m not special, the universe doesn’t care about me. The fact that I even exist in this universe is crazy enough. No matter what I do, each morning the sun is going to come up. Each season the plants and the animals will go through cycles of growth, rebirth, death. Everything that is, just is, and that is enough.

I’ll admit it wasn’t the most spectacular sunrise I’ve ever seen. BUT, it was so nice just to slow down and reflect on life. My mind is always in high gear, so it was refreshing to sit and acknowledge my existence. We headed back to camp, had breakfast, and loaded the bus. Off to Nitmiluk Gorge, also known as Katherine Gorge, for a boat tour!

Nitmiluk Gorge

We arrived early enough to explore the area and hike up to the viewing platform. We also observed the camp of flying foxes that had found their roost for the day, cackling away. If you’ve ever visited the bay enclosure at the Assiniboine Zoo (or any zoo, I suppose), they smell about the same in the wild. Their excrement is acidic enough to strip paint, so if you ever move to northern Australia, watch where you park!

The tour was great! It had two segments, as the Katherine River in the dry season is incompletely navigable. The river has 13 gorges which are formed in fault lines of the sandstone rock formations. The gorges are separated due to the low water levels in the dry season. During this season, saltwater crocodiles are unable to navigate these shallow areas, so once the crocodile surveys are done, the second and further upstream gorges are opened for canoeing and swimming, but the first gorge remains closed.

Our tour was only going through the two most downstream gorges. We took one pontoon boat to the upstream end of the first gorge, then had a portage to the second gorge of about 500 meters. We boarded the second pontoon boat, and started up river again. At the end of the second gorge, we saw some caves carved into the stone by years of seasonal flooding and the birds that call them home. In the picture, you can see there are two caves. In the flood of 1998, the river level was halfway up the upper cave, about 6 or 7 meters higher than it was on our tour, filling the gorge 3/4 with water.

We made our way back to where we stared, and en route we saw a kangaroo!! It was smaller than I expected, having the mental image of red kangaroos in my head. It also looked a little disheveled, maybe due to the heat or perhaps because of all the pesky tourists stressing it out.

Our guides told us about cane toads in the Northern Territory, an invasive species that arrived from Queensland starting in 2001. I knew these poisonous amphibians were in Queensland, but not so close to us, so I added them to my list of things I was hoping to see. So far, I’m doing pretty good! No wombats or platypuses or koalas or echidnas yet though. Saltwater crocodiles and one other creature are the only things immune to the poison secreted by glands on the back of the cane toad. However, crows, being the smart little birds they are, have figured out that if they flip it over they can eat it belly-first.