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Australia 2011
Day 10 - 7th August - Katherine River Breakfast Cruise (Part 1)
In the morning, we witnessed a strange sight on the TV. There were scenes of famous cities set to Placido Domingo: St Malo. Brussels. Salzburg. Bandar Seri Begawan (?!) with the header "what a world". The the weather report came on:
Australian Weather report - with Opera
Australian Weather report - with Opera 2
There was also the news in Mandarin, with a man on the street interviewed in English (and his response translated) and another person interviewed in Mandarin. There was no dubbing - it was subtitled both ways.
We then set out for our breakfast cruise. There'd been a 3 Gorges cruise, but the main difference was you got to swim for 2 hours in addition to what you'd get on the breakfast cruise - and the girl at the counter admitted it was "a bit chilly" (yeah right, "a bit").
Loading up
There was a large Italian group of 15 on the cruise, and again we were the only non-Whites.
Bats
Sailing into the sunrise
Inlet
Cruising the Katherine River
An Australian Breakfast looked an awful lot like an English breakfast (the usual yogurt etc was at the back of the boat)
Trap for saltwater crocodiles
Sunrise
Gorge walls
Cruising up the Katherine River
Freshwater crocodile nesting area. At 28 degrees the eggs turn out female, at 30 both sexes and above 30, male.
You're not supposed to enter. Each mound has about 15 eggs.
Cruising further up the gorge
We had to sit at this point so as not to block the view of the captain of the rocks ahead
We then docked at the first cataract, to get onto another boat and continue cruising.
Rock steps
Rocks in stream
Canoe area
Don't you just love tourist infrastructure? Not only were there carefully-hewn steps, there was a railing!
First cataract
"These paintings are like a book to us"
Faded rock art
Moored boat
Jawoyn tips
Aboriginal sand art and Italian lady
There were insulated containers placed along the short trail between the boats. Hah.
Next cataract
Spectating
Cliffs
Up until this part we'd been in the First Gorge. Now we moved to the Second.
The rock is 1.65 billion years old
Butterfly Gorge
If you use red meat as your lure, you'll get snapping turtles and freshwater crocodiles coming.
Hanging Gardens
During the 1998 Katherine flood, the water reached 15m below the 63m canyon wall. The streets were flooded and there were saltwater crocodiles in them.
Cliff overhang
In the past, if you broke the aboriginal skin name taboo, you got speared to death. Who said colonialism was all bad?
Vegetation
These trees are bent not due to the wind but because they are underwater 2 months a year.
There's a tree, the Katebod (sp?) whose flowering cycle follows the freshwater crocodile. So it's called the calendar tree.
There's a chalky apple which you can only eat after it's fallen into the river and soaked in it.
There's a 66km walk here - and it was booked till September.
Happy canoeists
Freshwater croc sunbathing. Usually they're very shy.
The rocks in the canyon are a natural barrier against saltwater crocodiles, because they have soft bellies so they can't crawl over - except during the wet season.
'Flying foxes' (I've always thought it a pretentious term)
Bats
Bats 2
Bats