Starting to get a bit slack as I have 3 days to catch up on. On the 21st May we left Bachelor, the town created to service the workers of the Rum Jungle Uranium Mine until the early 1970’s. I was amazed to read that when the mine closed in 1971 the Australian government decided NOT to rehabilitate the mine. After mining, the area suffered elevated external gamma levels, alpha-radioactive dust and significant levels of radon daughters in prevailing air. These levels were so high that in the late 1980s it was finally admitted that something had to be done. Radiation protection standards were being revised, so that the levels of pollution would now be officially recognised as unsafe for human health. As a result, a supplementary $1.8 million program to improve Rum Jungle Creek South waste dumps was undertaken in 1990………………I cant believe the Australian Government of the day allowed this to happen.
When Bachelor was being developed many full grown trees were kept rather than being knocked down. It is a green leafy town that is pleasant to drive through.
Our drive didn’t take long and we were soon in Katherine. We found our caravan Park, River View, after crossing the Low Level Bridge, built during the War. Being only 6 feet above the ‘Dry Season’ water Level, it is impassable during the majority of the wet season (Dec- April) when the water level is 40 feet above it.
The next day, Tuesday 22 May, we had a bit of a look around after visiting the Information Centre and learning the Ghan train was in town for 4 hours. Named after the Afghan cameleers who once traversed this route, The Ghan travels from Adelaide to Darwin, our only train service going north/south. During February there had been flooding in the Northern Territory which caused a goods train to de-rail. It took 10 weeks before rail services resumed. This caused a backlog of travellers wanting to trave on the Ghan so today the train was extra long……………..and I mean long. I spoke to someone at the train station and was told the Ghan today was 971 metres long. That is just short of a kilometre!!!!!!!
It was being pulled by 2 diesel locomotives and the carriages went as far as the eye could see.
These are the 2 locos pulling the carriages.
We later went and visited the Katherine Museum which is located where the old airstrip was during the war. Something I didn’t know was that Katherine was bombed during WWII. The runways of this airfield were bombed. Apparently about 91 bombs were dropped by plane and 1 person was killed and one was injured. This photo shows the old airsock that shows wind direction and fuel pumps on the airfield.
Today, Wednesday, was my big day. Lance and Kurgan stayed at the caravan park doing chores while I along with Viv, Eric, Denise & John went on a cruise to explore the first 2 gorges on the Katherine River. Its headwaters are in Nitmitluk National Park andf there are 8 gorges in all.
In late January, 1998, heavy rain associated with Cyclone Les raised the level of the river by more than 20 metres and flooded a large part of Katherine town. A more recent flood on 6 April 2006 caused a state of emergency to be declared. During this event the river peaked at a height of just below 19 metres at the Katherine bridge on the Stuart highway. During the 1998 flood the whole town was under water up to roof level, including the shops. Woolworths was one of these shops and when the defence forces went in to clear out the shop they found a salt water crocodile in the butchers department of the shop. Gives a whole new meaning to shopping.
The gorges are beautiful to see and I didnt know when to stop taking photos, 234 in all. We did the 9am cruise but even so there was no control over where the sun was……………..just had to do the best with what we had.
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