We have now been travelling for 3 months… 13 weeks to be exact! Time has flown although some nights with little Miss E have dragged on hour by hour. Our perfect little sleeper is now… well… not!

We are currently in Katherine, we arrived last week and have visited Edith Falls (in the Nitmiluk National Park) and the Katherine Hot Springs, both of which are gorgeous natural pools and as you’ll see below way more enticing than going to the local swimming pool. I have also had the chance to meet up with one of the missionaries I served with in Sydney, Elder Richardson! After posting our whereabouts on Facebook he let me know he and his family live here in Katherine. We caught up at church and then they had us over for a roast dinner which was so nice on both accounts. Esther made a new friend in Zara, as she army crawled around the house and played with duplo!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Beebe’s & Richardson’s

Edith Falls:

We started the hike when we first arrived, hoping to do the 8.4km return trip to Sweetwater Pool, but after an hour of hiking in the heat we found ourselves at Long Pool.

Esther enjoyed a swim in the water, followed by a “nature” play in the sand!! She loved every second of it and wasn’t too happy to have to redress and start the hike back.

When we finished the hike, we had lunch with a Black Whip Snake, an apparent resident of the campground. Okay there is a story to this, I went to go to the toilet block and there were a group of about 8 people (early twenties) standing in front of the toilet, directly where I was walking towards, they were staring at me, as if they were waiting on me to join them, so they could go, which was really weird… until I got a metre away from a 2m black whip snake, which I unintentionally startled as I walked towards it (focusing on the weirdos looking at me) when a guy (around the blind corner of the toilet block) also now a metre away from the snake trying to take a photo of it said “watch out snake”… those “weirdos” were staring at me because I was walking towards the snake! Who let’s someone walk towards a snake? We then went to Edith Falls Pool. It was so much bigger than I expected, Gorgeous! Rumour has it that at the beginning of the season they removed a 3m Saltie!

Esther loovves to go in any temperature water including water cooler than I’m keen on… but she hated the blow up pool ring! So after attempting to swim out to the falls, trying to convince her that she liked it we swam her back, with her crying all the way 🙂 Hopefully she’ll get used to it.

Katherine Gorge:

After a much needed day (for me anyway) preparing some meals to freeze we went out to Katherine Gorge with the Richardson’s. I had picked up a map with the walks on it from the Katherine Tourist Information Centre and was looking forward to going to “Southern Rockpool” roughly 2.5 km from the Visitors Centre. I even wore my bathers and packed Esther’s. After seeing some gorgeous “rockpools” and “Waterholes” I was sooooooo disappointed after hiking (with Esther on my front) an extra “0.5km” (whatever, I think they misplaced the dot point), straight down the Gorge to find a not so swimming hole 😦