Katherine 2.0 || Day 37

Today’s adventure begins at the campground where I gave myself the fear of a lifetime earlier this morning, when I heard a car towing a trailer clatter its way through the campground. This morning we went and fed the animals at Manbulloo homestead, some brahman cows and buffalo. We also got to see a bowerbird nest and learn a little bit about Manbullo’s resident bower. When the animals had been fed and pestered, it was time for me to make breakfast (as I just didn’t have time before!).

Then we left the homestead and headed into Katherine, otherwise we’d have just stayed around the campsite all day! When we got in, we sat in the car and organised some of the events for the remainder of the planned time we had in Katherine. After we’d booked a tour of Nitmuluk National Park for tomorrow and a tour of a local cave system for later on this afternoon, it was time to hit the shops to pick up some groceries.

Midway through doing the groceries Jacob checked the time and realised we had to go, urgently. We had 45 minutes to get to our caves tour and we still needed to go through the checkout!! Thankfully we made it to the car and were able to make it to the Cutta Cutta Caves with 10 minutes to spare. It was a great tour inside the caves where I learned that the name Cutta Cutta means ‘place of many stars’. The story we were given was very sweet because it talked about how the night sky stars are stored in the caves (thanks to the sparkly speleothems) and every night the resident bats pull them out to place them in the sky. At the end of the night when the bats make their way back into the cave they take the stars back with them (placing them back on the structures of the cave).

Once our cave tour was finished, we decided to check out some the Katherine hot springs. It was a very enjoyable swim and definitely took the edge off the afternoon heat. It had an almost lazy river feel, though it pooled in too many places to be a true lazy river. After the swim it was time to head back to Manbulloo Homestead to ensure I got a spot feeding the animals!

When we were at the shops I bought a second bag of carrots to feed to the animals, as it’s something we’re allowed to do. I thoroughly enjoyed feeding them. I also found out at the animal feeding this afternoon that Percy the horse is an ex-Victorian show horse who is 17 years old and the donkey is 4 years old and is most likely pregnant. Both animals are rescues, which just makes the story so much more precious.

I couldn’t help but notice how spectacular the sunset was today. It’s a real shame I wasn’t by a beach to watch it be swallowed by the ocean! I must say I’ve been spoilt my whole life to watch sunsets over the ocean whenever I’ve wanted to! I am excited though to see a sunrise over the ocean in future adventures though…

For dinner I made a simple fried rice and despite thinking I’d completely messed up on the rice it turned out perfectly when I added it to the pan. Perhaps that’s all I need to do from now, though there’s still quite a bit stuck to the bottom of the pot that I haven’t worked out how to make it not happen. It ended up being an early night because tomorrow we visit Nitmuluk National Park and need to be there early.