Into The Tropics Blog 8
A road trip north from a southern winter, traversing the long distances through the vast outback, is rewarded with the increasing warmth once crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. From this point on in the journey, 80% of our time will be spent enjoying the long warm/hot days of the tropical dry before re-entering the cold atmospheric orbit, like nomadic road trip astronauts, of the southern chill.
Crossing into the tropics
Another indicator 'hinting' the entrance into the tropics are the landmark residential structures of one of the many local species of fauna that soon start to appear along the roadside vegetation, 'Termite mounds, of the grass eating Spinifex Termite.
Typical termite mounds seen all through tropical NT&WA
Archival photo (2013) of not so typical mound.
There is a unique species of termite who are sun smart and collingwood supporters!
The stop over at Katherine was to explore another of our 'bucket list' ticks being the magnificent Katherine Gorge. We decided to explore the gorge via a combination tour boat / canoeing. We had our first canoeing experience a number of years ago on Port Adelaide's Port River. We hired a canoe each and successfully paddled around a section of the river. For this more testing excursion on a 36c day we decided on a double seated canoe for the 7 km round trip exploring gorges 2&3 after travelling by boat through gorge no1 to the canoe station. Katherine Gorge is not a single waterway, but a series of 13 gorges, not all being easily accessible. Our booked 4 1/2 hour boat/canoe was an easy option to experience a taste of the gorge.
Pre dinner selfie
Katherine River
Rail bridge over Katherine River-18m flood marker
Boat on gorge1 to the canoe station at gorge2
A short 300 Km stint up to Howard Springs, 25 Km's south of Darwin, saw us arrive at our holiday park before our 'eco tent'
was ready. So to kill an hour or two we found our way to the 'Howie',
or Howard Springs Hotel for long, for what turned out to be a terrific 'countery'. We returned to the park after our 2.00 pm checkin time and set up camp.
We noticed on the way up into the tropics that the closer to Darwin, the greater the traffic and this proved to cause some minor issues during our 4 days.
Two of our favorite places to visit when in Darwin are Litchfield National Park and Berry Springs waterhole. The Florence Falls and Buely waterhole are must visits in the Litchfield Park. We headed out on our first day and the first thing we noticed being the camp sites and caravan parks throughout Litchfield were all bursting at the seams. Entering the car park at the Buley Waterhole had us driving around in circles looking for a space. After the third rotation we headed for the exit. Even one vacant park would not have had any bearing on the waterhole being 'mayhem'. Onto Florence Falls with the same result. Onto Berry Springs with the same result. Oh well, just as well we had experienced visiting these on more than one occasion. Can't be greedy. Bloody tourists!
Mindil Markets
Mindil Beach sunset silhouette 
What we saw of Litchfield National Park-worth seeing
Buley Waterhole
Florence Falls
What we didn't see! (Archival photos)
Our departure from Darwin will see us head south back to Katherine for us to turn right onto the Victoria H'way (Savannah Way) and head due west for the WA border. We had heard all sorts of horror stories regarding the perils when applying for the notorious WA G2G border pass. Rejection for no apparent reason, long waits for a decision and or spurious supporting documentation made for a degree of apprehension when sitting down to apply. Having made a few applications for Tasmania, Victoria, NT and Qld, the WA process was very complex and detailed. Fingers crossed.
After an hour filling in my application and hitting 'submit' the submission was acknowledged by return email 15 seconds later. A few seconds later, email received to verify my email account then verification acknowledged and a few seconds after that the pass was approved with pdf attachment. Aprox. 30 seconds. The same for Ngaire's application.
