Nitmiluk

Nitmiluk is the national park just outside Katherine. Nitmiluk (pronounced nit-me-look) means 'place of cicadas' — in local language, cicadas say nit, nit, nit.*

We spent the Easter long weekend in Nitmiluk and the nearby small town of Katherine (or K-town, if you're a local). Katherine is a small town with limited facilities, about 300 km south of Darwin. We had dinner one night at the Country Club, which was busy, bustling and full of families, but the highlight of our trip was the time we spent in Nitmiluk.

The Katherine River flows through the park. Over millions of years, the water has eaten its way through the rock and has carved thirteen gorges in the base sandstone. At this time of year, the river cruise travels to the First and Second Gorges only. At the juncture of the two is a set of rapids, so passengers have to leave one boat, walk across the rockline, and hop into another boat to explore the next gorge.

There's a viewing platform called Pat's Lookout on the top of the cliff overlooking the First Gorge. (Who's Pat? No idea.)

Ken and I are suckers for lookouts, so early one morning we climbed to the top. It's well prepared, with paved rock paths and handrails, and a few sets of metal staircases on the steep climbs. And relatively few other climbers, which suited us perfectly! (As an aside, we're becoming quite upset about the growing number of tourists coming north as the Dry season approaches. Ken calls it 'the Curse of the Dry'. We liked our quiet Top-End-in-the-Wet.)

Jedda is a celebrated Australian movie made in 1955. It was the first movie made with Aboriginal actors. Apparently the last scene was filmed on this cliff below. Given that the rock is called Jedda's Rock, could we infer that the last scene might be tragic?

The Wet may be coming to an end, but the water level is still quite high. Given the danger of saltwater crocs crawling upstream, only one location is open for swimming at this time of year: the Southern Rockholes. Getting there is a mission. It requires clambering over large rocks, walking through slippery mud and clinging desperately to a chain. But we succeeded. Cost to self: one cut knee and one pair of extremely muddy shoes.

I think we were the oldest people there by about 20 years, probably because no one warned us about the rock scrambling required to get there. But I'm glad they didn't.

* Cue for reference to knights who say ni, ni, ni — but no, I shall refrain.