We were slightly discombobulated this morning for some reason and didn't start our journey to Nitmiluk National Park (Katherine Gorge) until almost 9.30. It is a half hour drive so we didn't arrive at the gorge until after 10am. I said to Philip that it was probably too late to start a walk but the lovely young girl at the information centre told us that it is an easy 1.8 km return walk to do the Baruwei Loop via the lookout. So we set off.
The first 400 metres of the walk is very easy with well defined concrete paths leading to the boat ramp where the tour boats are lined up to take you on a cruise along the length of the gorge. We had done this some years ago when we were last in Katherine aboard "The Ghan" so we felt no need to do this again. The walk would suffice this time. We were a little lost as to what direction we should take from the boat ramp but a local guide soon set us on the right track.
After walking a few metres I asked Philip how high did he think the look-out would be and he pointed upwards to the top. I said "No way! We couldn't possibly climb that high". How wrong I was. The path started gradually until we reached the steps. S O M A N Y S T E P S, that went up and up and up. The only redeeming thing about the upward journey were the hand-rails. I don't think I could have made it without them being there. I was also pleased that we had been walking up and down Buchanans Point at Palm Cove quite a bit before we left so I had a little hill walking experience. However it really was a hard walk but as my friend Kate and I said when we were hiking at Lawn Hills, "slow and steady wins the race".
We meet some people coming down at around the halfway mark, and they assured us it was well worth the pain, so I plodded on. Philip galloped up but did stop occasionally to make sure I was doing okay. It was a very hot day with high humidity that didn't help matters, but we were carrying water as is recommended on any bush walk.
FINALLY! The end was in sight and what a sight it was. I felt like I was standing on top of the world! We were so incredibly high above the gorge and the views were truly spectacular. Philip spotted a crocodile in the waters below us but all I could see was the mud that it was churning up. We were also lucky enough to have one of the gorge cruises pass below us. Everyone on the boat was madly waving at us and probably thinking we were quite mad to be up here. We probably were 😁.
We stayed up there for quite some time just breathing in the beauty before looking at our watches to see that it was almost midday so we started making our way back down the gazillion steps. Of course the decent was much easier and Philip branched off onto another path that took him down to the waters edge. I said I would stick to the one we came up on. When we meet up he said that there was quite a lot of sand to walk through on the path he chose, so I was pleased.
Back at Katherine we picked up a chook from Red Rooster and had Rice Paper Rolls for lunch. We were starving and they were perfect. This afternoon we vegged out in front of the TV (and in airconditioning), to watch an old favourite movie of ours called "Good Will Hunting". We shopped a few groceries late this afternoon at Woolies and found a terrific butcher who had a good selection of everything we needed so we are now stocked up for the next week or so.
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