Day 42 - Kakadu to Katherine

 (Kate)

Day 42 – Kakadu to Katherine

We packed up at Cooinda.  What a great place this has been.  We visited Warradjan Cultural Centre on the way out.  Kate bought a couple of books, including Judy Opitz’s autobiography.  We headed south towards Katherine, stopping to make lunch at Pine Creek, and to use Australia’s cleanest toilets.  They even have soap – no need to byo here.  Ben chatted to the volunteer operating the train museum again.  We kept going, and were initially thinking that we would stop at Edith Falls for a swim on the way, but given the lateness of the hour by the time we got there, we decided to do a day trip from Katherine instead.  We stopped at the tourist info centre to book into a Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) 2-gorges tour, and to get water ($2 for 50L).  We picked a caravan park at Manbulloo Homestead, about 12 km SW of town.  It’s beaut.  We are in the overflow area but there is plenty of space and we have set up tarpaulin city to keep the wind and the dust and the sun at bay.  Its noticeably drier/less humid here.  And it got cool as soon as the sun went down – what is this madness called cold weather?!?  We had to put jumpers on – overnight forecast 9 degrees.  There are mango trees lining the driveway at Manbulloo, and they sell frozen and dried mangoes at reception.  YUM.....