Gregory National Park

The day dawned clear and warm (as every other morning in this part of the world has during our stay with the exception of one morning of heavy fog in Darwin). Having now spent a reasonable amount of time in two different NT national parks I am taken by how well set up for visitors they are. Everything is fairly simple, but well priced and comfortable. I think this is a significant part of the attraction to them, especially Kakadu and Litchfield, along with how accessible the attractions are. We have certainly seen much more impressive waterfalls (Wallaman Falls outside Ingham for instance) and plenty of rugged countryside, but few places have allowed, or been warm enough, for you to swim under the falls or climb up beside and around them. Also, while they are accessible, the approaches and trails haven’t been built up to the point that the interest and sense of adventure is removed from them. For a large part of the time we have been poking around we have definitely needed the four wheel drive at minimum, with things like the Snorkel also important at different times.
Anyway, after packing up we set for Katherine initially, to re-provision and obtain the new tyre. Obviously the unusual tyre size of the Pathfinder also has a pricing issue as even the office staff came out with “bloody hell – that’s expensive” when it came time to pay. We also managed a good chat to Liz – I think Max summed things up beautifully when, after seeing how much he was missing his Mum and brother through his desire to talk to them, I asked him whether he would rather head for home more quickly. To that he replied “I’m missing home Dad, but nowhere near enough to want to miss out on the chance of doing this trip”.
The drive out to the national park was fairly uneventful, although Max did like the fact that I was willing to have the talking book of Bumaggeddon (not sure about spelling, Liz or Mrs Lindsay to the rescue?) playing the entire way. On the intersection tot eh entrance to the part of the Gregory National park we had decided to visit is a memorial to the Durack Family, paying tribute to their pioneering efforts over many years around the turn of last century. All of this information on the lives of the early pastoralists I am finding fascinating, especially given that several generations of my mothers family came from pastoral leases. This uneventfulness ceased to an extent on the entrance road, with Max throwing up all down the side of the car after spending too much time on his DS on windy, bumpy roads. I think however this has been a lesson learned (possibly for both of us – at times I think I have been forgetting he is only 9 and expect him to operate as someone a lot older due to him being my only companion).
Another simple, cheap but pleasant campsite was encountered at Bullita, with my opinion about part of the reason for the popularity of the Northern Territory national parks being strengthened, although flies – especially those that bite, midgees and mozzies here are definitely a negative. Max has now found a very significant positive in his insect net being separate to his swag as it fits over him when he is sitting in his chair, so he has been almost permanently installed under it whenever we have been in camp and shared it with me when we were eating tea last night.
This morning we visited the limestone deposits and waterfalls before heading in to look over Bullita Homestead. The limestone deposits are amazing, in fact a pure white waterfall (no water at this time of the year) had Max believing that somehow snow was surviving in this environment.
Bullita itself was considered one of the harshest of the pastoral leases in the country, with the cattle actually being shod before being driven to market due to the hardness of the ground causing irreparable damage to their hooves otherwise. This is the first time I had ever heard of cattle being shod.
The homestead area and main cattle yards are all being carefully preserved by the NT Parks and Wildlife as a record of the life of the regions pastoralists. The sawmill used to prepare timber to construct and maintain the yards has been relocated to sit beside the yards and looks as if it is only short an engine, belts and a lube-up before being completely operational again.
The homestead has all the buildings in place as they were when the lease ended in about 1977, which is probably much more confronting for kids like Max as it is easier to talk to him about conditions that existed within my lifetime rather than looking at structures from the early 1900’s which seem to be ancient in his eyes. The 1970’s are long enough ago for him as it is!
It was amazing how rough and ready life still as on the station at that time, although the climate would have had some impact on the design and layout of the homestead, sore sheds and stockmen’s accommodation.
At this stage we headed back to camp for a late lunch and a rest. Max is finding the heat difficult to deal with at present, he thought he had acclimatised when we were in the Kakadu but it has been somewhat hotter out here.
Tomorrow we head to the Keep River National Park, which meets one of Max’s desires. This afternoon he said “wouldn’t it be cool if we could find somewhere only a couple of kilometres from the WA border to camp Dad, instead of actually crossing into WA” at which point I pointed out to him that the turn-off into Keep River, where we are headed, is only 3km from the border. He decided that that met his needs, I think he thought it was inside WA when we had been talking about spending a night or two there.