What a joy to sleep in a bed that doesn’t move and is wide enough to roll over in without the fear of falling out. I slept soundly last night, no doubt aided by the farewell drinks on the train, although the 8-12 gunshots at 3am did disturb me briefly.
Yesterday began with an early breakfast and a four-hour stop in Katherine. We chose the helicopter tour of Katherine gorge and flew over all 13 gorges. In essence it is one long gorge, separated by sandbars. The flight was 25 minutes but the gorge was not as spectacular as I had imagined. I think it is probably nicer at ground level.
Since the flight only took up a fraction of the stop, we went to the visitors centre which had an interesting display outlining the scientific explanation of the formation of the gorge alongside the creation stories of the Jawoyn people.
There was a geocache just outside the railway station perimeter, but since we got back five minutes before boarding, we didn’t have a chance to find it. We pulled out of Katherine and stopped about 200m down the track where we sat for 65 minutes waiting for a goods train to clear the single track.
We arrived at Darwin station just after dark. Having waited about 100 years to complete the line from Alice Springs, you would think it would actually go to Darwin instead of stopping a 20 minute drive from town. Maybe the bus lobby got in the government’s ear.
Being on Gold Kangaroo service we had a complementary transfer to a hotel. Not our hotel mind you, but one 200 metres down the road. Ours must be quite new since the concierge of the other hotel wasn’t quite sure where ours was.
The hotel next door to us is still being built, so the view is dominated by a crane and we awoke to the sound of a pile driver. The hotel room has the smallest storage hot water service on the market, so being second into the shower, I had to turn the hot tap on full, the cold tap off and managed only a tepid shower. Still at least there was room to move unlike the shower on the train where you had to get out to change the soap from one hand to the other.
We shall shortly start to exploreDarwin. We have a brouchure listing the top ten attractions but only a few of them look interesting. After the morgue and the waste transfer station, I’m not sure where we are going. We were so tired last night (or ‘tired and emotional’) we went to bed without dinner, so our stomachs are rumbling for breakfast. Darwin here we come.
Tags: alice-springs, darwin station, geocache, katherine gorge
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