Still Here!!

Well, after a sojourn back in the wilderness of (this time) the Northern Territory, we are now in the thriving metropolis of Katherine.  We have actually been in communications for a couple of days, but for some reason the Blogger web page has been out of action for new posts.

Now to catch up -

After Barkly Homestead (Wednesday of last week) we headed north along the Barkly Highway to Cape Crawford.  Now the Barkly Highway is a major route in the NT but it nearly 400 klms of SINGLE lane bitumen!  Very interesting when there is another vehicle coming from the opposite direction - even more so when that vehicle is a road train.  Fortunately, there is plenty of verge to pull over on.  The road was dry, but very rough in many places where the water from the recent extended wet season has been lying.

Cape Crawford is just an intersection of two major highways with a hotel/caravan park.  In the tourist season, it is the base for helicopter flights to "The Lost City" - a nearby fascinating geological formation which you cannot drive to.  Once more, we were about two weeks before the tourist season - because of the late wet season.

Onto Borroloola where we stocked up on most supplies and then to King Ash Bay about 40 klms further away on the banks of the McArthur River - 21 of those kilometres were on another unsealed road.  King Ash Bay is like an old fashioned fishing village - lots of land, basic facilities, power, no television or mobile phone service.  The is a small shop, service station and a club house.  There wasn't a good start when the servo didn't have unleaded petrol (for Tuf Cat) until the next Tuesday and the club didn't do 'takeaways'!  We gave Tuf Cat premium petrol (which she adored) and the Captain had to ration his meagre supplies of alcohol for a couple of days until he ran out and then he drank Coke.  We even ducked back into Borroloola to stock up but due to the large indigenous population they have huge restrictions on alcohol sales - namely only sold between 2.30pm - 5.30pm each day and then it was only light beer - no spirits or wine - aaarrggghhhhhhhhh.

The fishing was a little bit ordinary.  It was 30 klms to the mouth of the river and then nearly another 20-30 klms to the islands of the Sir Edward Pellew group.  Absolutely beautiful place!  No fish pics as they were the same sort as we have already caught and not as big.

The Captain did manage to hone his skills with the cast net and kept us supplied with live bait - even to at one stage catching a medium sized queen fish in it.  Whilst The Captain meandered along a rock bar in the middle of the river, the Deckie stayed on board Tuf Cat to ensure she didn't float away.  This was a fortunate decision as this spot - although very pretty - could have been a crocodile home!

The Captain stalking his prey

The other side of the rock bar

The Freshie on the other side of the river

Most of the visitors to King Ash Bay towed caravans in and had a tinny on the roof of the 4WD or brought in their camping gear packed in their bigger boats but we thought that our temporary neighbours were travelling in style.  The plans for these guys were to spend a week or so out near the islands after spending a couple of days travelling down the river - way to go!!!  When not on the water, this boat is also used as their accommodation instead of a caravan or tent.

Basically another day - another different rig!

We left King Ash Bay on Thursday and once more headed west - back onto the Carpentaria Highway  through Borroloola, Cape Crawford and then to Daly Waters on the Stuart Highway.  Another 400 klms of mostly single lane bitumen but there weren't many large trucks or road trains as they have been restricted to certain hours due to the condition of the road (after the wet season).

Yesterday (Friday) we headed north to Katherine where we will be spending a few days.  This morning is domestic chores morning (to try and get rid of some of the red dust that has built up) and then we shall be heading out for some touristy stuff with all of the other migratory people.