Day 31 – Katherine to Timber Creek

We awoke early to get moving underway, but I didn’t want to leave too early in order to shop and refuel by the time the magazines were in. The first part went to plan – we left the park by just after 8:30 and did the fluid shop as Woolworths was open. I filled up and disaster struck – they don’t get the magazines until Friday, so I missed out on getting them AND the extra 4 cent discount (on 140 L it would have been considerable). However Lynn did remember we forgot to pack stuff we had left in the camp kitchen fridge, so we called in (it was on our way) and collected them. We were off! We passed the Katherine station but there was no train in, and we listened to a story while driving along, marvelling at the varied scenery by the roadside. One kangaroo was very lucky as he crossed the road just in front of us, with no warning at all. Then, before we knew it, we arrived in Timber Creek. Booking a site was easy – and only $5! We looked at a cruise in the late afternoon and booked that, making up the eight necessary for it to run. Then we had a drink in the front bar of Fogerty’s Hotel in Timber Creek, just so we could say we had. Back at the caravan park we selected a site, set up the tent and had a light lunch – we had to use up vegies before tomorrow as we will be crossing the border at a quarantine point into Western Australia. We sat and chatted to our current neighbours (who were going on the same cruise) and then headed down to catch the bus at 4. We called into the old Police Station museum before departing from the landing on Big Horse Creek. There were the eight of us, so it was very good. The cruise started off slowly, we had a look at Bradshaw Bridge from under and then we barrelled up the river. We saw a few crocs, mainly smallish ones, but the highlight was feeding a sea eagle and a kite from the pontoon we had a light tea on. On the way back we saw numerous wallabies and a croc or two. Once back at camp we changed and settled for bed – it was very warm so I didn’t use a sleeping bag, just a sheet. It was very quiet compared to other nights.