Arriving in Katherine-via Edith Falls

Mark got up at some ridiculous hour, like 6.30am, and went for a stroll down the wetlands to see the sunrise this time. When he returned, Dylan was a little upset he didn’t take him down like he said he would. Oliver. Lily and I were all still sound asleep, didn’t even hear them leave. Pack up day, boy we are getting better at this now. We feel like we play tetras (a game) when putting everything back in the camper, everything has there certain spot. Dylan is a great help and Oliver he’s our washer and dryer. Now Lily is getting in on the act and drying dishes too. 3 hour drive today, stopping at ‘Edith Falls’, another waterfall to look at. Arriving at ‘Edith Falls’ around lunchtime was perfect as everyone is ALWAYS hungry. There must be something about holidaying and the kids just want to nibble all the time. We didn’t walk the whole way up to Edith Falls, we just saw it from the bottom, and waded our feet in the water and walked across to the small island in the centre of the water area. Oliver wasn’t quite tall enough to wade across without getting his bottom wet. Oliver was getting annoyed with flies and hated the fact they were always landing on him. (Well he thought he was the only being annoyed by flies). Lunch at Edith falls and then to move onto KATHERINE, to the Nitmiluk National Park campgrounds. Booked in and of course it was, again, really hot. Camper up quickly and kids ready for the pool, the pool looked lovely. These campgrounds are $55 a family and you choose where you want to go, so of course we chose right opposite the pool area. Lots of Wallabies are roaming looking for scraps. As we didn’t have any food for dinner and were really low on supplies, Mark took off into town, Katherine, about 30km away to do some shopping. I was going to go, but now hearing about his adventures at the shopping centre, I’m glad it wasn’t me. There were apparently lots of drunken Aboriginals in town hassling tourists and begging for money. They don’t sell alcohol until 2pm here, and we no know why. An Aboriginal, begging for some money, approached Mark. This Woolworth’s in Katherine, is always so busy, we have been there twice now and have waited in line for at least 30 mins. While Mark was doing it hard in town, I was back at camp with kids swimming and Setting up the rest of camp. There was a school camp at the campgrounds and the children started to plays soccer. Dylan and Oliver were asked, would you like to play. Dylan’s answer was ‘No’, and Oliver was like yes, I’ll play. These children were years 5/6 and from Darwin on camp for the week. Oliver loved playing with the children and I guess missing that interaction with other kids. Dylan then decided yes, he’ll play too, so he did. Here’s Oliver getting in there up against big kids and he was over the moon, he got a goal. Glad he didn’t do a handstand in front of strangers. The kids had to go as they all had duties to carry out and to have showers etc. It was getting late, around 6pm, and Mark wasn’t back yet. Looks like a late dinner tonight for us. I found the last Corona in the fridge and as I was so thirsty, I skulled it. I don’t even drink beer, but since being in this hot climate, it goes down quite easy. We are now into our 5^th slab, now is that a worry, as we have been on the road for 5 weeks. Oh well its holidays. Mark finally arrives back at 6.30pm and we quickly put together our dinner. While Mark was out, I went over to the visitors centre and booked our tour for the Katherine Gorge the next day. There are different tours and are so expensive, ($280 for the family and that’s Lily for Free), we chose the 4-hour cruise and you see 3 gorges. Katherine Gorge has 13 Gorges, but can only cruise down 3 or 2 of them due to water levels. This tour was booked for 11am the next day.  Many wallabies hang around while we eat dinner and Mark begins to feed them, later that night he will regret it. Bed a little late, around d 9pm and I just wanted to lay down and relax, so I hoped into bed and watched a movie. Awoken by wallabies getting into our things, AGAIN!! Tried getting utensils out. I’ll blame Mark, he originally fed them.

One of the many signs we see, but I don't believe in swimming there.

Edith Falls.