The route.
The vehicle outside the hostel in Darwin.
Our guide Damien. Note the leg cast.
Our first roadside picnic.
Edith Falls in the Nitmiluk National Park.
Australian boab trees!
Oliver and I at Katherine Gorge.
Our first night of camping... in permanent tents.
Saturday,
September 10th
I
checked out and waited outside the hostel for 20 minutes before our
overland truck came. It looks similar to the African one only
smaller. Our guide is Damien and he has a big walking cast on his
left leg from an accident a few weeks ago.
He fell backwards off the truck and damaged his heel.
We
loaded up the 14 people and immediately
set off on our journey. I sat at the very back beside a young girl
from Berlin, who lives in Sydney, and her
cousin who is travelling with her. We stopped at Pine Creek for a pit
stop and a snack. The weather is very sunny, hot and humid.
Later we stopped for lunch in a small
town. We had cold cut sandwiches and some
veggies. Then Damien
asked if anyone wanted to sit up front and I volunteered. We had a
good time
talking and getting to know each other a bit. The group seems
quite nice, mostly
Germans
with three Irish, two Aussies and me.
We
continued our drive into the Kimberley. This is a special geological
section of Australia because it was originally a separate floating
tectonic plate that crashed into Australia eons ago. It consists of
ancient, steep-sided sandstone mountain ranges with with steep ridged
gorges cut through by rivers swollen with the extreme seasonal
monsoon rains and this climate has removed much of the soil. We drove
on to Nimiluk National Park and on to Edith Falls. This was an
excellent example of the role water has played in shaping the
environment.
When
we got there Damien
got us all to sit down on the grass and gave us a heartfelt talk
about the plight of the Aboriginals.
He knew we had seen some lazing around and some that were under the
influence. He told us to not be too quick to judge them as they have
been treated awfully, from the time of the first settlers right to
the present day.
The
falls were quite pretty and
most
of us hiked up a hill to both the top pool
and the main
falls, and had a swim
in the pool. The temperature
of the water was beautiful. I hiked with Ollie the cousin. Then we
walked back down to the lower pool where I had another swim
because it was very hot. The temperature was in the upper thirties.
After
that we loaded up again and drove to Katherine where we stopped at a
bottle shop at Woolworth's and I bought a
flat of beer (24 cans) because we won't be anywhere near a bottle
shop for the next week. Many of the towns we are going to are in
'dry' areas. Damien warned us to take our ID in with us as there
would be police inside checking everyone's ID. I think this is an
attempt to keep alcohol out of the hands of young people. Then we
drove on to our campsite
for the night where we dropped off our beer
in the fridge at the camp. This is a camp
with permanent
tents. After we dropped off our stuff we drove to Katherine Gorge and
did another small
hike up a hill in the heat to a viewpoint
over the river. I also saw my first boab
tree here in the parking lot. Boab trees are also called bottle trees
and are related to the baobab trees of Africa, where they are also
called the 'tree of life'.
Back
to the truck and we drove back to camp. We
unpacked and moved into our tents. I have
my own for tonight, and probably will for
the whole trip as the other three males on the trip are with their
partners. Then we cut up some
veggies and Damien
made
us a stir-fry. We sat around a campfire
and ate and had a couple of drinks. We all
packed it in early, as we are all tired. I was very tired from the
three day kid camp and the late flight.
Our
participants are:
Anna
26 Germany and her cousin Oliver 35 Germany
Gudrun
60 Germany
Katherina
32 Germany
Albert
54 Germany and his wife Anja 53 Germany
Jamie
22 Ireland and his travel companion Samantha 25 Ireland
John
27 Melbourne
and his wife Lucy 28 Melbourne
Denise
27 Ireland
Tomo
32 Japan
and
me.
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