Katherine - Timber Creek

NT/WA

It finally stopped raining in Katherine at 9am Monday morning.

From our caravan window we could see the river had risen significantly overnight so jumped in the car to check out the depth gauge on the Katherine Bridge and sure enough it had jumped 2 metres to 13 metres.

A phone call to the Banyan Farm at Daly confirmed our suspicions - no go. The river there was on the rise and would only get higher in the coming week given it is fed by the Katherine River. We can rebook for early May - so that's the plan! 

So where to now? Somewhere where it isn't raining, we could stay put for a while and do a spot of fishing would be good. We do a bit of web research, browse our maps and make a few phone calls and decide to head west toward Kununurra to a place called Timber Creek. The ranger there informs us the river is good, the fishing is excellent, free camping by the river is available with boat ramp, pit toilets and James can come. You beauty!  

Now that we would be heading back to bush camping we decided to do a couple of loads of washing/drying before taking  a walk over the old railway bridge spanning the fast flowing river to check out the depth gauge once again. It had risen another half meter in 4 hours. The bridge was swarming with locals who were really keeping an eye on the levels!

Next morning the river had started to go slightly down. We packed up, parted company with Blackie and Phil (who had decided to take their chances at Daly) and made a leisurely departure from Katherine heading west on the Victoria Hwy.

The 300k trip to Big Horse Creek Campground just west of Timber Creek in the Gregory National Park took about 4 hours with a fuel stop at Victoria River Roadhouse. The scenery, which started out as flat savannah country became quite spectacular the closer we got to Victoria River with multiple escarpments and waterfalls. We listened to an hour or so of "Life of Pi".

When we got to the camp area we picked a site away from the only other family group there and set up for a long stay. A short time later a Ute appeared and dropped off some Aboriginals and a couple of slabs of beer. Mmm...a bit disconcerting! Not long after the Ute reappeared with more of the locals and more beer, and soon there was a dozen or so of them making quite a noise.

We locked the van up and headed into town to get phone coverage, check out other potential camp options (in case we had problems with our new neighbours) and suss out a recommended fishing spot at Policeman’s Point. At the Point we came across a family whose car had gone off the track and into a ditch. Brian offered help but a winch was required so we stayed until a couple of cops arrived with a winch and the boys all worked together on the recovery mission. A bit of entertainment and the first of Brian’s multiple Good Samaritan acts for the day!

The cops assured us our friends back Big Horse wouldn’t be a real problem other than make noise so we headed back to camp and were just settling into a cold one when one of the young Aboriginal women came over and asked for a lift back to town. Two girls and a guy were stranded with no transport after the others had left. Brian finally agreed to take her (no room in the back for any more as it was full of stuff) and she could then organise transport for the others. But no, that didn’t happen. Brian was just re-settling into his half-consumed cold one having been gone for nearly half an hour when the other two lobbed on our door step with little apparent intention to leave. With not much alternative Brian squeezed the two very large people into the front passenger seat and repeated the 20km round trip.

Finally back at camp we decided BJ was a pretty good bloke and the "Thanks Grandad" that he got was fair reward. That was, until we discovered that Brian’s sunglasses and the stubby holder in our centre console containing $50 or so of gold coins had gone walkabout.

Bugger eh!

We are camped on the left bank just behind the bridge across the Victoria River. Not too close to the river as there are big crocs!