Isamundi strikes again

Our overnight stay in Katherine was fairly uneventful and it's not the sort of place that we really want to visit again. We treated ourselves to a night in a hotel and the woman who ran the joint was a real old bag -that was until Belle paid a few compliments to her pet cat who hung around our motel room. The old bag quickly turned into a sweet old lady who liked to tell us cute stories about her little feline. Katherine had a good tackle shop, and a decent Woolworths, so we were able to stock up on the essentials and make our way to Daly Waters.
There are a whole heap of places to stay on the Daly River, but decided to stay at the Mango Farm as we had heard lots of good stories about this place. We were greeted by a nice young man who was as camp as a row of tents which is quite odd for the NT outback (they are usually pig shooting, beer swilling Red Necks). After being interrogated about our maritial status and future plans for children we were soon setting up camp for the next four days.

some snakes in the dunny - they don't scare us any more.

The next morning we put the boat in and hit the river with Barramundi in mind, as the Daly is renowned as the best spot to hook a Barra in the Territory. It is also (as we soon found out) well known for its extremely high population of large Salt Water Crocodiles (insert scientific name here). Unlike their relatives in the Gulf, these crocs are not boat shy at all and we often found ourselves in close (but safe) proximity to large salties sunning themselves on the bank or cruising up the river very close to our boat. On our first morning out we saw roughly 60 crocodiles and about 10 of those were larger than the boat.

This croc was BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG

 But the croc trap is even bigger................

Fishing was a little bit slow, but Isamundi/Barabelle broke the drought with a nice 60cm Barra. Before you could say 'pan-fried barramundi with garlic butter' Waz had dispatched the fish to the ice-box. Unfortunate for Waz he was only able to boat Rat Barra (Belle is going to give him a few pointers before we hit the Cobourg Peninsula).

Isamundi strikes again 

conversion

We had noticed that there were a lot of cherabin (fresh water prawn) pots out and had heard from various people that these were the gun Barra bait (and were good eating). Luckily we had purchased a few pots in Katherine and the next day we were pulling out some pretty decent sized cherabin (tasted delicious with a bit of garlic).

mmmmmm

Waz was super keen to get a legal Barra after the Isamundi event, and this nearly came to fruition on our last day. He loudly lamented the fact that he still hadn't caught a legal Barra on the trip and was admitting defeat when the strike came. A good sized Barra fought all of the way to the boat, jumping all over the place. However one final leap saw it gain its freedom seconds before being netted into the boat. 'Oh Fiddle Sticks' said Waz (or words to that effect) 'what a blasted shame'. The day only got worse when some old codger ran over his trolling line and took all of his braid and favourite lure. When Waz lost two more lures to concealed snags we decided that it was time to get him back to camp and pump some cold beer into him before we had an 'incident'..........

All in all, we had a great time and we will definately go back to the Daly River as it was a top spot but we had to pack up and leave as Litchfield National Park was calling. We decided to tackle the 4WD track into the park, this was a beautiful drive, but was quite challenging in some spots. We navigated a few tricky creek crossings (see below) which were pretty steep and long in places, but we made it through without incident and were back on the 'Black Top' pretty quickly.

ant hills

We passed a shirtless man who must have been in his late sixties wandering aimlessly down the road. We stopped to see if he was ok, but when he asked us where he had parked his car we thought that he may be a little disorientated. We explained that the car park was just down the road and gave him some water and pointed him in the right direction and were on our way. Ordinarily we would have invited him to jump in the back of the car, but we had just finished reading a book about a man who was beaten and dumped in the desert after helping what he thought was a stranded tourist, so we thought that it was best to let him walk the 500 metres down the road instead.

Not long after that we were setting up camp with Lori and Eva at Pethericks which is a privately owned campsite right on Cascade Falls. We didn't do a lot there, but enjoyed swimming in our own private water hole and thermal spring and exploring some of the local attractions (Wangi and Florence Falls). We were unable to secure a campsite in Darwin because the Darwin Cup was held on Monday, so we ended up booking ourselves into the Camp Site at Howard Springs, which is about a half hour drive from the CBD and a pretty good park. We have spent the day organising bits and pieces and spending up big at 4WD and camping shops - we even gave the car a well overdue wash. We will leave Darwin on Friday and make our way to Cobourg Peninsula - we can't wait..............

Wazabel at Wangi Falls

Lori and Eva looking serious (serri)

The Cascades

Emu on the side of the road

Florence Falls