This weekend is the annual Katherine Horse Races. Accommodation is hard to get, drunk and loud behavior will be rampant (it started already last night) and no tyres are going to arrive until at least Monday. So we decided we should take a little excursion out of Katherine for a few days.

So why the photos of the vehicles rear door? Well last night the handle fell-off. It should be held on by a small but special bolt. The bolt had obviously vibrated out and dropped on the road somewhere. So before we got going this morning we needed to find some way of temporarily attaching the handle. The handle is essential for getting out of the vehicle during the night and to lock up during the day. I thought we would try our luck at the local Toyota dealer and to my shock they actually had some of these special bolts in stock. This seemed quite amazing given how much trouble we are having getting other parts like tyres.

After the door bolt success we headed for Katherine Gorge or Nitmilik National Park. We visited this park in 2019 but a lot of development has taken place since then. A large cafe/booking center has been built and a large privately managed camping ground developed. We got to the campground before lunch and spent most of the day either resting under a shady tree or exploring the area.

During our exploration we found that there is a large fruit bat colony in the forest along the river and that the colony can be viewed from the cafe deck or anywhere along the track to the start of the boat tours.

We also learned that there is a short walk to the top of an escapement overlooking the gorge which gives a great view of the sunset and that just after suset the bat colony flies along the gorge at the start of their nightly foraging. Thus just after 5:00pm we started the hike to the top of the escapment. Pictures below.