Go West, NT, On the Road

Go West, Day 104 – Katherine

Day 104

Thursday 18th June 2015

Katherine

We’re up early to farewell the Prado’s to the West and the Ollies who are off to Darwin to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.

We pack our bathers and drive 60kms north to Edith Falls and what a pretty spot. We walk the kilometre up to the top where the climb gets a little bit difficult and we have a swim in the pool. It’s a real bucket list thing swimming in a waterfall fed pool in the NT. The walk down is much cooler in our wet togs. I am giving Woody a hard time about wearing sandals on a bush walk and as the track evens out I stop concentrating on my footing and WHACK I find myself on my bum and only about a hundred metres from the car park! A couple of charming young blokes give me a walking pole then Woody gets me into the car. He dives into the Techni Ice fridge and wraps two large chunks of ice around my foot. ‘You couldn’t do that with a Waeco’ he says as he tests the NT 130kmh speed limit back to town. At this point I realize that I’m still in wet bathers and I hear my mother’s words “always wear clean underwear as you never know when you may have to go to hospital”. Thus, with foot encased in ice and swimming in pain I wriggle out of my cossie and into something more respectable. My heartfelt apologies go out to anyone heading north on the Stuart Highway who may believe that they were ‘flashed’ by a sixty something year old woman heading hurriedly south.

Edith Falls soon to be renamed Lindsey Falls

The Katherine hospital is near our van park. The Emergency staff members are most apologetic for being flat out today. Boy I’ll bet the team at Frankston Hospital would love to be that busy. There are about twenty people, 50/50 Aboriginal and very tanned white folk and a couple of Asian kids. Everyone is sitting quietly watching daytime TV and the presenters seem so sparkly white and from another world. The staff are fantastic and by the time we are due to be boarding our sunset dinner cruise on the gorge I am plastered up and learning to use crutches. The staff are happy that my ankle is broken because it will heal quicker than a strain.

As Nanna used to say “Once they start falling that’s the end of them.” Best tan I’ve ever had though.

Poor Woody has had a shocker of an afternoon trying to get a refund from Nitmiluk Tours who say that we should have given them 48 hours notice before cancelling our Katherine Gorge dinner cruise and won’t refund our $300!

Accom: $40.50

Travelling Kms: 0

13 thoughts on “Go West, Day 104 – Katherine”

  2. Nasty. My grandmother gave similar advice except that she ended with “have a accident” rather than “to go to hospital”. It seemed to me that there was no point if I was going to soil them any way.

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  3. Perhaps you should have worn sandals too! I slip over easily on any downhill slopes, so a bush walking stick is always my constant companion in the bush. It’s like having a third leg. It must have been awful to be in a caravan in crutches. Touch wood – that I never have to find out just how awful. You have/or would have had my full sympathy. Loved Edith Falls though, we did the top pool as well a couple of years ago.

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    1. I was warned not to put the foot to the floor under any circumstances which made it awkward. Inside the van I hopped hanging onto whatever, there’s just not enough space for the crutches. The toilet was the biggest problem as van toilets are so low. I only wish that I’d had the courage to climb the van steps with crutches.

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  4. You joined the ranks of those of us who have walked all sorts of difficult terrain with impunity, then come to grief somewhere relatively innocuous. Like my best friend who has trudged many hundreds of tough kms – and broke her ankle on the lawn by the ferry at Morgan. It’s all down to Murphy, you know……

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  5. Oh no – you poor sausage.
    I really admire your commitment to keeping up standards, though, changing out of your cozzie at the side of the road with an injured foot.
    Your Mum would be proud!

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      1. As a windsurfer, I know the feeling well. Once my skirt split up the back at work and I was mortified. Mark put it into context to say that half of Hampshire has seen me in my underwear in a windy car park in December. Some Japanese tourists once took a photo of me by the van in a bikini and wooly hat. Cheek!
        Seriously, I wish you a speedy recovery. xx

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