Day 24 Katherine
We started today by going on a river cruise at 8 am on the Katherine River. It started out by getting in a boat and going through the first gorge and stopping at a bit of land so we can walk to the other side to get on another boat. In the wet season, the water level gets over 6 meters taller, which means you can sail right through without having to stop. On the land, you could see some Aboriginal rock art dated to 10,000 years ago! After we got in the next boat, we went into the second gorge which has these big sandstone cliffs around it, and it also has the deepest part of the river which is 30 meters deep. After we went through the river cruise, we stopped at the caravan to eat lunch and wait a bit and then we went to the Cutta Cutta Caves. We tried to go there yesterday, but we couldn’t because there was a Brown Snake in the entrance. When we came this time, there was an Olive Python in the entrance, but we could go in since it wasn’t venomous. We started by going down steps into the cave and onto a small platform where the Olive Python and coiled up and was hiding in a crevice. It looked really good, and you could see the green on it really well. After that, it opens into a room with a lot of stalactites and stalagmites which looked good. When you kept going, you had to go through the squeeze point which is a bit where you have to duck and shuffle through because it is really small. Then it goes to a big calcite formation which was super white and sparkly. When you kept going, you had to go through another squeeze point, and you got to the end of where they let you go through the cave. When it stops, you are about 250 meters in and it goes 500 more meters back but since the cave goes into the water table for all of Katherine, it gets super-hot and humid. If you go past where we had to stop, it goes to above 40 degrees and 98% humidity around 450 meters before it even gets to the end. If you go that far, you wouldn’t be able to breathe because of the humidity. Then we came back to the van and stayed there until we had dinner and went to bed.

The Olive Python in the caves

The calcite formation

The first gorge in the Katherine River

The deepest part of the river

Aboriginal rock art dated to 10,000 years ago
