Sunday 29 May 2022
Home is now under the lovely shady cool trees at the Riverside Caravan Park in Katherine. The park is high above the deep banks of the Katherine River, which is very wide here. The immediate river below is dry sandy beds. I think one of the channels further across may still have water running in it. The hot springs are just up a short way from the edge of this van park, so we will be taking advantage of them in the late afternoon when it is not so hot.
We have paused here for a couple of days to spend some time out at Tony’s memorial on the Sturt Highway and tidy up around it.
After a couple of very hot hours out there this morning Norm has done a great job, clearing away the tall grasses and laying more rocks around the cairn to prevent the grasses from covering the site. More work is required, but we will continue with that on the return journey.
This afternoon we popped around to the Katherine Hot Springs, which are down several levels of stairs to the riverbed, a little distance from the end of our van park. There is a canopy of tall leafy trees which provide welcome shade around the springs. They bubble along a narrow channel at first, over a rocky ledge into another narrow channel, which flows eventually over a second rocky ledge into the main pool. WE felt like kids again gliding down the narrow channels and sliding over the slimy rocky dam wall into the next section, slipping under a bridge, which required a full emersion moment then a most unglamorous but successful wallowing headfirst over the final dam into the last spring. Norm forgot his magic underwater camera so there is no photographic evidence of our great feat. Of course for the more sedate bathers you can get out at each stage, walk around and take the next lot of stairs into the following section.
At last, tomorrow we will finally reach Coomalie Air Field and get to see our darling new addition to the family, Coomalie. We are so looking forward to catching up with our dear friends, Denise and James Wright and Richard Luxton, the owner of Coomalie (the property, not the puppy). Coomalie is my magic place, full of so much history and with such wonderful friends there too. One more sleep to go…
ON THE ROAD 