So our next show was on Thursday night in Katherine. We’d booked this one in with Pete who took a lot of convincing that it would be a good idea. Because it was still wet season Pete kept telling us that if it kept raining we wouldn’t be able to get in to town and if it stopped raining then everyone would leave town to go fishing. So we decided to leave on Tuesday to try and give us the best chance of getting through and making the gig happen! While we were filling up with petrol and supplies in Kununurra we met Remi, an Estonian backpacker who’d been hitching his way around Oz and had been trying to get himself a ride to Darwin for a good 6-7 hours. Now 6-7 hours in the heat of wet season is a pretty top effort and he offered to chuck in some cash for fuel so we thought what the hell and told him we could get him as far as Katherine. Ha, Mr Woolfe Creek Murderer, you’re no match for us now!
Remi was great company on the drive telling us about the interesting characters he’d met along the way and teaching us a bit about Estonia. Remi was surprised to learn that I’d visited Tallinn, Estonia a few years earlier when I was singing on a cruise through Northern Europe, I think I was the only person he’d met on his whole trip who’d been there. Before crossing the border we all decided that Lake Argyle was a must see so we took a little detour to check it out. We also saw a couple of decent sized snakes on the road, Remis first snake sighting in Australia. Lake Argyle is enormous. It is the result of the damming of Lake Ord in 1972 and usually stores about 5.8 million megalitres of water and has a surface area of about 1000 square kilometres making it the second largest reservoir in Australia, and a pretty stunning thing to behold.
We missed the afternoon cruise by a few minutes, but got a spectacular view from the lookout and snapped off a few photos. I just found a picture of Lake Argyle from space which I’ll put in the gallery… it’s pretty impressive!
Anyway, after our tourist stop we were back on the road to Katherine and as we left the Kimberley behind and crossed over the border we were welcomed into the Northern Territory by a beautiful rainbow forming over a distant rain cloud. We were also welcomed by more snakes. Lots of snakes. The Territory left West Australia for dead with the amount of snakes we saw. Lots of pythons but a few browns as well, luckily we were inside the van and they were outside and we planned to keep it that way. We passed by lots and lots of creeks and the further into the NT we got more threatening the names became. Scorpion Creek, Mistake Creek, Skull Creek… we were almost ready for Crocodile Creek or perhaps Dead Tourist Creek, but as the sun was setting we pulled off the road to walk over a footbridge across the Victoria River and take in the beautiful skies and try to spot some crocs from the safety of the bridge! No crocs but some nice sunset photos none the less! Not long after, we pulled into Timber Creek to get some fuel – our most expensive to date at $1.87/litre – and considered grabbing a meal but were put off by the plethora of big tough VB drinkin’ croc wrestling types in the bar and thought it best to keep on moving. We thought we might grab a 6 pack of beer in Timber Creek so we’d have a few wind down drinks on hand for when we pulled up to camp but our enquiries at the bar informed us that we’d have to part with twenty bucks to get ourselves 6 CANS of VB so we politely declined and drove off empty handed (and empty walleted after the fuel purchase!).
We drove for another hour or so before pulling in to a rest stop and calling it a night. Tomorrow we hoped we’d make it in to Katherine safe and sound and flood free.
