Katherine, Edith and Nola

A day of surprises, and ticking a few jobs off.

First stop after a leisurely pack, was the Katherine School of the Air. In my previous life, I was involved in the refit of the broadcast studios of the Katherine School of the Air. That meant it was on my list of things to see, as I didn’t manage to get to Katherine for the installation.  That job was back in 1998, after floods put 1m of water through the school building, destroying much equipment. Just recently the HF radio was replaced with satellite/internet based delivery, passing our equipment into history, preserved only in the DVD made by KSOTA. They treated it so well when it was removed, it was carefully repacked and all returned to Creative Audio and it looked just as good as the day we made it. A disappointment to me was that Ken Browne, the technician onsite during our time, had left only a few months previously.

KSOTA was our first surprise. The woman who gave the presentation turned out to be the mother of a best friend of Lynne’s sister. We knew she was in Katherine, but had no idea she was involved with the school. She could tell us a few tales about the time Clare went to the cattle property near Katherine back when they were at school.

The next task was to visit the Katherine Red Rooster. In a previous life, Isabel’s current school teacher was one of the first customers there. We were under instruction to look for a few landmarks from the time, but alas we failed. Also in Katherine we discovered that Macca’s free internet is worth all you pay for it  when you show up at lunch time. Seems we may have to spend money on internet time to catch up as you will all be waiting for my posts.

We wasted a fair bit of time trying to get the blogs uploaded, only managing one while I did the shopping. However, we had pretty much decided to delay our trip to Kakadu by a night so we could go to Edith Falls on the way, as it had been recommended by many. A good call. A fantastic swim and a glorious light at sunset. Tomorrow we’ll probably do the walk as well before we leave.

Statistics for the day. Only about 100km. Took in some more of that cheap Katherine diesel, and left another $130 at the woolies. Our friends from Katherine Gorge met us here again, so we had some social time as well to ease us through the day.

The Territory Times (or whatever it is called) headlined that Alice Springs had its coldest day on record. No surprise to us. However today is more normal, just right for a swim. However, we are definitely into evening bug territory. I type this through a swarm of crawlies loving my lighted screen.