Nhulunbuy / Katherine 3/9/2013

We woke to the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the singing of birds, and the gentle rising of the sun. A beautiful day. Totally relaxed we got up, had breakfast and as we had seen markers for a trail to the next beach, a walk. We set off and almost immediately found ourselves walking between trees under a fairly low canopy. It was lovely for a while, then started to get a little denser. Suddenly I noticed I had green tree ants on my arm, followed by a sting on my back. Then it was on – obviously the ants ahd released some sort of pheromone and they all took that as an indication to attack. After around 5 bites in a row, we hightailed it back to camp to doctor our bites. So much for our walk.

The wind really started to pick up now, so lying on the beach was impossible. I don’t know if I mentioned that you cannot swim in the sea here – crocs, box jellyfish and sharks! So although the beach was lovely we couldn’t do anything but look at. We retired to our campsites and got the e-readers out. At around 10.30 Iain looked over at me and said ‘ I just feel like packing up and going’. I had been feeling exactly the same way! We sprang into action, packed up, did some photos and by 12.30 we were on the road. 

 We decided to head for the lovely roadhouse ,Mainoru , to spend the night, we knew we would be pushing it as they closed their gates at 6, but decided to give it a go. By about 4 we realised that we were not going to make it, so we made the decision to keep driving until Katherine. We were amazed by the number of Buffalo we saw, an introduced species. This fellow was polite enough to pose for me.

At 6.15 we pulled into a gravel pit to have something to eat and wait for the sun to go down – the shadows across the road make it impossible to see any hazards. We were hoping to be in internet range by 7 so we could book somewhere to stay – we don’t like bush camping when we are too close to civilisation, and most town caravan parks are not much to talk about. At 7.45 we pulled over and used the sat phone to book accommodation – just in time reception closed at 8! We made it to Katherine at 10 and fell into bed exhausted – we had made it, and were glad to be getting on with the rest of our trip.