Zebra Rock Mine

From Katherine, along Victoria River, there were a few fires beside the road, which look like backburning.

We did a short stop near Victoria River, climbed up for the spectacular view over the wide canyon and the river. It's croc infested, so no swim for us. It was hot enough that the boys didn't bother coming out of the car for the climb, which suits everyone fine.

On the morning tour, Ruth explained how rare Zebra rock is, how noone knows how it formed, and how they'd like to protect one pocket of it. 

There are layers of iron rich stone, with some kind of soft soap stone. It slightly swirls in places. 

This is the main deposit that they'd like to preserve. It's only about 30cm thick. The swirl lines never cross each other. They only touch together sometimes.

Our mining for the morning. They have some other pockets that they use to supply visitors, so as to spread the word.

Lou and friend  - Opal is Ruth's daughter and she has quite a collection of pets - a blue tongue, 3 cane toads, and a snake.

 Some great zebra stone samples.

Getting some attention from Opal's pet python.

Got to the Zebra Rock Mine campground. In the afternoon, we did a jigsaw puzzle.

Then we sat in on another talk from Ruth, before buying rock jewellery in the gallery.

Some bits look like chocolate chunks in a cake, some look like swirled marble cake, some look like finely layered tiramisu.

So it seems it started as sedimentary, then did some change under later volcanic heating. There are pockets of iron stone though, so they can't explain how that came to be. Some Monash science people got a piece, and their friends put it under a massive microscope. All the magnetic elements were aligned, so they think that the area was at the South Pole, when Australia was joined to Antarctica, so the swirls might be following magnetic lines, and this may be how they came to move and line up, and maybe how the materials coalesced.

Not sure from when this guy dates from.

Ollie finished it off while we checked out the rocks and fossils in the gallery.

Katherine

Rolled on to Katherine. Staying in a nice caravan park in a cabin, much to the boys relief.

Happy birthday to our gorgeous monkey. Jeepers you are getting big, too fast!

I think we forgot - you have to get rid of all your fruit and veg before crossing into WA. So it's a fruit platter for brekky, plus bacon and we forgot the eggs bit.

Went to the Cutta Cutta caves. The rocks were deposited here as sea creatures during the Cambrian times, about 570 million years ago. The limestone is from the shells etc of the sea creatures then - trilobites, weird cone shellfish, that kind of thing.

The name means "place of many stars" in Jawoyn language (pronounce Jawoyn just like "Darwin" but with a J).

The original creation stories have the bats carrying the stars out at night. Then they pack them away into the cave again when the sun comes up.

The carnivorous bats bring birds from outside at night to be eaten in the cave!

Also there is some kind of prawn living in the cave whose only near relative is in Madagascar, from Gondwanaland when all the continents were squished together as one.

We visited the hot springs of Katherine a couple of times. They are awesome, like a canal with rocks, just made for swimming, but clearly natural.

More swimming.

Went to the local art centre and voted in the Katherine art awards. Bought a hand woven Pandanus palm basket.

The guy on the left is made of rolled up paper - look closely; amazing!

Ended up staying one extra night since we got an email to re-register our car. Booked for the morning asap for the road worthy certificate.

Since we stayed another night, we saw "My Urrwai" by and starring Ghenia Gela. It's about her life as a kid in Rockhampton, and visiting where her parents are from: the Torres Straight Islands. She didn't fit in, there or on the mainland, came out to her family, who supported her. She learned the traditional dances. In the final part she sings and does some of the dance, explaining how they use a bow and arrow to hunt small birds in the grass. The boys liked it, us too.

Leliyn (Edith Falls)

Drove on from Gunlom. A guy from NZ had his motor not working, so gave him a lift to the roadhouse. He farms near Dunedin. It snows a lot! He grows sheep and beef cattle, plus hay to feed them. We gave him a lift back to the Gunlom turn off. Apparently he got down there ok and out again. We met the Pommie guy from Brighton UK, who was helping him try to get his car running, in Edith Falls.

Stopped at Pine Creek to submit the kids schoolwork on Sunday. Rolled on to Edith Falls. It is spectacular. One couple from the Sunshine Coast told us the swim to the falls was easy, so we did it. I was anxious, but it turned out to only be about 200m. Wouldn't want to cramp up out there though.

The sky around here is super stoopidly blue staight overhead, and is still quite blue on the horizon.

Had pizza and music night Monday night. The guy had only been playing for four years, but was very good. His wife, the singer, came from a musical family. Found out about the couple from the GC, John Miller and his wife Zelda, plus a run down on their basketball playing daughter who got a scholarship to the US, his brother who headed Sport NSW etc for a bit, his dad who was in the Qld parliament for 20 years. John himself was a schoolteacher, then water sports manager in the Whitsundays, now in a set of paint shops.

Gunlom

The ranger guided tour of the Savannah showed most of the plant species in the park, plus a lot of birds. We saw a bush that makes soapy water; in a bird bath a friend of hers could not see why these things were in the bath. They got binoculars, and worked out the birds were bringing them. Then they would wash their wings etc with the resulting soapy water.

There are fruits with strychnine, deadly, but other ones have quinine, which were used to prevent pregnancies. So they were living in a Garden of Eden, plus had a good time.

Paperbarks contain litres of water - one had a bulge, with enough for everyone in the group. The Kakadu plum has about ten times the vitamin C of an orange. There are 3 kinds of bush apple. We sampled some watery honey from a yellow bottle brush flower.

On the way, we stopped at Maguk; a magic waterhole, with huge jumps. Everyone loved that place.

Right: more Maguk.

Gunlom is down a 40 odd km dirt road, but well worth it.

Gunlom.

This little buddy was waiting in the reeds for the little fish that flocked in the river bank weeds. We saw him get about three in a row. He's not much afraid of people either.

The infinity pool at the top of Gunlom. What a view!

Marie and Ollie travelled up this way to find a little gorge, well shaded, and a nice little way to swim, at Gunlom.

Gunlom.

Gunlom.

Cooinda Lodge Kakadu

Left: a couple of  shots from Ubirr, talking about weird sickness. Could this be induced by radiation from the uranium?

The local people have been aware of the areas to avoid, with hot rocks. It is critical not to injure or cut yourself while in this area. The Jawoyn believe that it will never heal. Can you imagine the complexity of the song that records the boundaries and landmarks to navigate quickly across sickness country, and where must be avoided?

Coronation Hill used to be a massive uranium mine. I wonder how many got sick from working there. The PPE looked to be pretty much non existent, meaning high exposures, particularly from breathing the dust. Further mining of this hill was overturned by Bob Hawke, and the land returned to Aboriginal ownership. The trees and vegetation are slowly returning.

First contact: rock art that clearly shows all high details of colonial time ships, even the anchor chain.

Left: first contact.

Bracelet making; both the boys sat with Violet here, and learned how to weave their own bangles. We used fibres from the Pandanus (spiralis I think). The ladies must pull the very central leaf out, then split it into strands, dry it, wet it, dye it etc. Then the weaving fun can begin. That's why the baskets etc are so expensive! They had a hat for a lazy $500.

Weaving some gold: Ollie made a really nice one with 4 colours.

Bangle making.

Later that afternoon, we went on the Yellow Water river cruise. They call it yellow water, as the buffaloes stir up the mud, it colours the water yellow.

This bird has no wax on his feathers. This gets them wet, and lets them dive and swim under water with their wings, to swing around and spear fish with its beak.

After they need to dry off in the sun.

Unwelcome guests; buffaloes trample the water holes. So do pigs. The introduced salvinia weeds choke the water. Cane toads have culled the freshwater croc population right down. This cruise was a bit depressing really.

Mighty eagle!! A sea eagle flying free.